"Geraldine is always late for breakfast, but surely she ought to be down by this time," Mrs. Brinn said, with as much acrimony as a mild old lady could well compass.
"Oh, Geraldine reads half the night," explained Mrs. Keene. "Such an injurious habit! Don't you think so, Mr. Gordon?"
"Oh, she is all right," expostulated the young physician.
"Geraldine has a constitution of iron, I know," Mrs. Keene admitted. "But, mercy!—to live in books, Mr. Gordon. Now, I always wanted to live in life,—in the world! I used to tell Mr. Keene"—even she stumbled a trifle in naming the so recent dead. "I used to tell him that he had buried the best years of my life down here in the swamp on the plantation."
"Pleasant for Mr. Keene," Gordon thought.
"I wanted to live in life," reiterated Mrs. Keene. "What is a glimpse of New Orleans or the White Sulphur Springs once in a great while!"
"'This world is but a fleeting show,'" quoted Rigdon, with a palpable effort to laugh off the inappropriate subject.
"Oh, that is what people always tell the restricted, especially when they are themselves drinking the wine-cup to the bottom."
"And finding the lees bitter," said Rigdon.
The widow gave an off-hand gesture. "You learned that argument from Geraldine—he is nothing but an echo of Geraldine, Mr. Gordon—now, isn't he, Mamma?" she appealed directly to Mrs. Brinn.