"I never asked them."
"It is your father's doing," cried Mrs. Peterkin. "I do believe he
asked everybody he saw!" And she hurried back to her guests.
"What if father really has asked everybody?" Elizabeth Eliza said
to herself, pressing her head again with her hand.
There were the cow and the pig. But if they all took tea or coffee,
or both, the cups could not go round.
Agamemnon returned in the midst of her agony.
MRS. PETERKIN'S TEA-PARTY. He had not been able to count
the guests, they moved about so, they talked so; and it would not
look well to appear to count.
"What shall we do?" exclaimed Elizabeth Eliza.
"We are not a family for an emergency," said Agamemnon.
"What do you suppose they did in Philadelphia at the Exhibition,
when there were more people than cups and saucers?" asked
Elizabeth Eliza. "Could not you go and inquire? I know the lady
from Philadelphia is talking about the Exhibition, and telling how
she stayed at home to receive friends. And they must have had
trouble there! Could not you go in and ask, just as if you wanted to
know?"
Agamemnon looked into the room, but there were too many
talking with the lady from Philadelphia.
"If we could only look into some book," he said,"the
encyclopaedia or the dictionary, they are such a help sometimes!"
At this moment he thought of his "Great Triumphs of Great Men,"
that he was reading just now.
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