The hot soda cake, retrieved from the cinders, sent forth an appetising invitation. Mrs. Grogan had cut it into large chunks, which she split and buttered with a generous hand.
“Emily, I really think we ought to be going,” protested Mr. Usher, who hated and despised afternoon tea, and would as soon partake of rhinoceros as hot buttered soda cake!
“Oh, but, sir,” pleaded Mary, turning her battery of smiles on him, “my aunt Bridgie would be shockingly disappointed if you won’t honour her, after making the tay and all; she’s the real manager and mistress since me poor mother took bad, and I’m only good, as she’ll tell you, for a little nursing, and minding the hens and the flowers. I hope you will stay?”
Bence Usher was astonished to find himself presently drawn up at a table, spread with a clean coarse cloth, and seated before a steaming slice and a steaming cup, tête-à-tête with the two peasant women.
“No milk,” he cried, remembering the scene on the dresser.
“No milk,” echoed his sister.
“So it goes in families, misliking milk,” remarked Mrs. Grogan gravely. “I hope the tay is to your taste? I get the best, like me poor sister, four shillings and sixpence the pound. None of yer cheap mixtures!”
(There is no one in the world so particular respecting her tea, as the Irishwoman of the lower middle class.)
Mary, he noticed, was exceedingly dainty about her food, and reduced her share of cake to a mere slice, half of which she shared with the dog.
“That’s a handsome terrier,” he remarked; “he looks thoroughbred. Where did you get him?”