Trafford burst into a tremendous laugh, in which, after a moment, Margaret joined.
"I don't know what you two are laughing at," said Miss Harrison, surveying them. "I should think you ought to be more sentimental, you know."
"To confess all the truth, Aunt Ruth," said Trafford, going across and sitting down beside her, "Margaret and I have tried one or two of those experiments already!"
A WAITRESS
AS the evening was delightful, their coffee was served in the garden. Modesta brought out a low table and a tray; then, returning to the kitchen, she came forth again with the coffee-pot, fresh from the fire, and filled the two cups, one for Dennison, the other for his guest, Edward Gray. The coffee was fragrant, very hot, very black. John Dennison never took at night more than this one small cupful; but it was necessary that the quality of the drops within should be of the purest, and Peppino, the cook, knew that he must not fail. The dinner which had preceded the coffee had been excellent.
"Well, Jack, you live well!" Gray had remarked, after he had spent two days with his former school-fellow.
"Yes, good cooking has become a sine qua non with me," Dennison answered. "I don't take much, but it must be just so; I can't put up with even a trifling deficiency. I give Peppino very high wages for this economical land; but, on my side, I require of him unfailingly his very best skill. I am afraid," he added, with a quizzical smile, "that I couldn't get through my day and cultivate lofty thoughts if I did not feel certain that at the end of it there would be a capital little dinner waiting on the table. Physical comfort has become enormously important to me. Result: I'm corpulent!"
"Oh no," said Gray.
"Well on the way to it, then. Do you remember how lean I used to be?"
"You look in much better trim than you did when—"