They had told all their playmates and talked incessantly with childish bragging.

They seemed to mock her as with peacock eyes, symbolic of her own vanity.
"You sent the poor little things to bed very early," Wilbur said.
"They did so enjoy talking over their mother's triumph.

It is the greatest day of their lives, you know, Margaret." "I am tired of it," Margaret said sharply, but Wilbur's look of worship deepened.
"You are so modest, sweetheart," he said and Margaret writhed.

Poor Wilbur had been reading _The Poor Lady_ instead of his beloved newspapers and now and then he quoted a passage which he remembered, with astonishing accuracy.
"Say, darling, you are a marvel," he would remark after every quotation.

"Now, how in the world did you ever manage to think that up?
I suppose just this minute, as you sit there looking so sweet in your white dress, just such things are floating through your brain, eh ?" "No, they are not," replied Margaret.