The God in the Car by Antonio Hope

The Dennison children, after a two nights' banishment, had come down to dessert again. They had been in sore disgrace, caused (it was stated to Mrs. Cormack, who had been invited to dine _en famille_) by a grave breach of hospitality and good manners which Madge had led the younger ones -- who tried to look plaintively innocent -- into committing.

The Carlin children had come to tea, and a great dissension had arisen between the two parties. The Carlins had belauded the generous donor of ices; Madge had taken up the cudgels fiercely on Tom Loring's behalf, and Dora and Alfred had backed her up. Each side proceeded from praise of its own favourite to sneers -- by no means covert -- at the other's man, and the feud had passed from the stage of words to that of deeds before it was discovered by the superior powers and crushed. On the hosts, of course, the blame had to fall; they were sent to bed, while the guests drove off in triumph, comforted by sweets and shillings. Madge did not think, or pretend to think, that this was justice, and her mother's recital of her crimes to Mrs. Cormack, so far from reducing her to penitence, brought back to her cheeks and eyes the glow they had worn when she slapped (there is no use in blinking facts) Jessie Carlin, and told her that she hated Mr. Ruston. Madge Dennison was like her mother in face and temper. That may have been the reason why Harry Dennison squeezed her hand under the table, and by his tacit aid broke the force of his wife's cold reproofs. But there was perhaps another reason also.