"She said so, perhaps?"
"No, aunt."
"Then what did she say? I wish, my dear boy, you would try to be a little less reticent."
"She said, 'Her duty to you, aunt, and her very coarse veins were worse than ever.'"
"Varicose, Terence—varicose!"
"She said very coarse, aunt, and I suppose she knows more about them than any one else."
He has a very sweet face, and it is more than usually so as he says all this.
"And her son, how is he, poor soul?" asks Miss Penelope, as Miss Priscilla withdraws, beaten, into the background.
"His duty to you, too, and 'he is better, but has been much afflicted with the egg-cups for the last two days.'"
"The what!" says Miss Penelope, shifting her pinceneze uneasily, and looking perplexed in the extreme.