Or: "Hortense, go mull us a smack o' wine!"
Or: "Ha, ha, little witch! Up yet? Late hours make old ladies."
And Hortense must go off, so that I never saw her alone but once. 'Twas the night before I was to leave for the trade.
The blackamoor appeared to say that Deliverance Dobbins was "a-goin' in fits" on the dispensary floor.
"Faith, doctor," said I, "she used to have dumps on our turnstile."
"Yes," laughed Hortense, "small wonder she had dumps on that turnstile! Ramsay used to tilt her backward."
M. Picot hastened away, laughing. Hortense was in a great carved high-back chair with clumsy, wooden cupids floundering all about the tall head-rest. Her face was alight in soft-hued crimson flaming from an Arabian cresset stuck in sockets against the Flemish cabinet.
"A child's trick," began Hortense, catching at the shafts of light.
"I often think of those old days on the beach."
"So do I," said Hortense.