“I’m so glad,” he murmured from the other side of the universe. “I don’t think tea will be long now.”
“Oh, please don’t bother about tea,” she begged.
Caleb beamed more intensely.
“Oh, please,” he protested on his side. “My aunts and I would be very much upset indeed if you didn’t have tea. And to-day’s Thursday!”
Nancy looked puzzled.
“I see I shall have to let you into a little family secret. We always have a new cake on Thursday,” he proclaimed, smiling now with a beautifully innocent archness. Turning to Letizia he added playfully, “I expect you like cakes, don’t you?”
“I like the cakes what Mrs. Porridge makes for me,” Letizia replied.
“Oatmeal cakes?” Caleb asked in bewilderment.
“Letizia,” her mother interrupted quickly, “please don’t answer your uncle in that horrid rude way. Mrs. Pottage was our landlady at Greenwich,” she explained.
Caleb looked coldly grave. He disapproved of landladies with their exorbitant bills.