This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and
Laura Glyde, but Miss Van Vluyck said: "Excuse me if I
tell you that you're all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a
language."
"A language!" the Lunch Club cried.
"Certainly. Don't you remember Fanny Roby's saying that
there were several branches, and that some were hard to
trace? What could that apply to but dialects?"
Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous
laugh. "Really, if the Lunch Club has reached such a pass
that it has to go to Fanny Roby for instruction on a subject
like Xingu, it had almost better cease to exist!"
"It's really her fault for not being clearer," Laura Glyde put
in.
"Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!" Mrs. Ballinger shrugged.
"I daresay we shall find she was mistaken on almost every
point."
"Why not look it up?" said Mrs. Plinth.
As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth's was
ignored in the heat of discussion, and only resorted to
afterward in the privacy of each member's home. But on
the present occasion the desire to ascribe their own con-
fusion of thought to the vague and contradictory nature
of Mrs. Roby's statements caused the members of the
Lunch Club to utter a collective demand for a book of
reference.
HYLAND
