“Frederick, how impossible you are, dear. The children will think you don’t want them. Cousin Frederick is only joking, darling,” she added, laying her hand on Frances’ reassuringly.
“I never joke,” said Cousin Frederick with an acid expression that did much to confirm his statement. “Another cup of tea, if you please.”
“Here is Minnie,” cried Mrs. Tregaskis in tones of relief not wholly attributable to the appearance of Miss Blandflower.
“Here I am, last but not least,” agitatedly murmured the late-comer, while her hostess cordially embraced her, and presented Rosamund and Frances.
Miss Blandflower belonged to that numerous and mistaken class of person which supposes the art of witty conversation to lie in the frequent quotation of well-known tags and the humorously-intended mispronunciation of the more ordinary words in the English language.
She said, “Not lost, but gone before,” with a slightly nervous laugh, when Bertha deplored her lateness for tea, and explained that this was due to a mistaken impression that tea was to be at five o’clock. However, live and learn. And it was almost mechanically that she murmured, on being invited to eat saffron cake: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, well, perhaps I will——”
“Minnie,” said Mrs. Tregaskis, shaking a playfully admonishing finger at her, “how, now how, is the dairy? Have you been in once since I’ve been away?”
“Dear Mrs. Tregaskis, how can you? Of course I have. I’ve tried to see to everything, though of course no one could take your place. I needn’t tell you that.”
“Rubbish, my dear, rubbish. How’s the new dairy-maid? I was very vexed at having to leave without settling her, I must confess. Will she do?”
“‘I doubt it, said the carpenter,’” returned Minnie, shaking her head.