"
"Well," said Statira carelessly, and they went into the next room to
put on their wraps. Lemuel, vexed to have 'Manda Grier made one of
the party, and helpless to prevent her going, walked up and down,
wondering what he should say when he arrived with this unexpected
guest.
But Miss Swan received both of the girls very politely, and chatted
with 'Manda Grier, whose conversation, in defiance of any sense of
superiority that the Swan girl or the Carver girl might feel, was a
succession of laconic snaps, sometimes witty, but mostly rude and
contradictory.
Miss Carver made tea, and served it in some pretty cups which Lemuel
hoped Statira might admire, but she took it without noticing, and in
talking with Miss Carver she drawled, and said "N-y-e-e-e-s," and "I
don't know as I d-o-o-o," and "Well, I should think as mu-u-ch,"
with a prolongation of all the final syllables in her sentences
which he had not observed in her before, and which she must have
borrowed for the occasion for the gentility of the effect. She tried
to refer everything to him, and she and 'Manda Grier talked together
as much as they could, and when the others spoke of him as Mr.
Barker, they called him Lem. They did not look at anything, or do
anything to betray that they found the studio, on which Lemuel had
once expatiated to them, different from other rooms.
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