“And could it not be with something that would be—”
“Dull and goody?” put in Carey. “No, no, my dear, that would be utterly futile. You can’t catch my birds without salt. Can we, Polly?”
To which the popinjay responded, “We are all Mother Carey’s chickens.”
“I did mean salt—very real salt,” said Mary, rather sadly.
“I have not got the recipe;” said Carey. “Indeed I do try to do what must be done. My boys can hold their own in Bible and Catechism questions! Ask your brother if they can’t. And Army is a dear little fellow, with a bit of the angel, or of his father, in him; but when we’ve done our church, I see no good in decorous boredom; and if I did, what would become of the boys?”
“I don’t agree to the necessity of boredom,” said Mary; “but let that pass. There are things I wanted to say.”
“I knew it was coming. The Colonel has been at me already, levelling his thunders at my devoted head. Won’t that do?”
“Not if you heed him so little.”
“My dear, if I heeded, I should be annihilated. When he says ‘My good little sister,’ I know he means ‘You little idiot;’ so if I did not think of something else, what might not be the consequence? Why, he said I was not behaving decently!”
“No more you are.”