Here is part of the description: Standing as they were, tightly pressed in between a number of different groups, their ears were assaulted by a disjointed mass of stentorian conversation that gave a singular illusion as if it all came from one inconceivably voluble source, the individuality of the voices being lost in the screaming enunciation which, as Mrs.Sandworth had pointed out, was a prerequisite of self-expression under the circumstances.
They heard: '_For over a month and the sleeves were too see you again at Mrs.Elliott's I'm pouring there from four I've got to dismiss one with plum-colored bows all along five dollars a week and the washing out and still impossible! I was there myself all the time and they neither of thirty-five cents a pound for the most ordinary ferns and red carnations was all they had, and we thought it rather skimpy under the brought up in one big braid and caught down with at Peterson's they were pink and white with--' ...

'Oh, no, Madeleine! that was at the Burlingame's_.' Mrs.Sandworth took a running jump into the din and sank from her brother's sight, vociferating: '_The Petersons had them of old gold, don't you remember, with little_--' The doctor, worming his way desperately through the masses of femininity, and resisting all attempts to engage him in the local fray, emerged at length into the darkened hall where the air was, as he told himself in a frenzied flight of imagination, less like a combination of a menagerie and a perfume shop.

Here, in a quiet corner, sat Lydia's father alone.

He held in one hand a large platter piled high with wafer-like sandwiches, which he was consuming at a Gargantuan rate, and as he ate, he smiled to himself.
'Well, Mr.Ogre,' said the doctor, sitting down beside him with a gasp of relief; 'let a wave-worn mariner into your den, will you ?' Provided with an auditor, Judge Emery's smile broke into an open laugh.

He waved the platter toward the uproar in the next rooms: 'A boiler factory ain't in it with woman, lovely woman, is it ?' he put it to his friend.
'Gracious powers! There's nothing to laugh at in that exhibition!' the doctor reproved him, with an acrimonious savagery.