"I think I shall take a turn about the house to see that everything is being properly closed.

Would you like to come with me ?" Olivetta would; and, talking, they went together down the stairs.
As they neared the ground floor, Matilda's voice arose to them, expostulating, protesting.
"What can that be about ?" wondered Mrs.De Peyster, and following the voice toward its source she stepped into her reception-room.

Instantly there sprang up and stood before her a young man with the bland, smiling, excessively polite manner of a gentleman-brigand.

And around her crowded five or six other figures.
Matilda, pressing through them, glared at these invaders in helpless wrath, then at her mistress in guilty terror.
"I--I did my best, ma'am.

But they wouldn't go." And before punishment could fall she discreetly fled.
"Pardon this seeming intrusion, Mrs.De Peyster," the foremost young man said rapidly, smoothly, appeasingly.