Mrs. Everidge laughed brightly. "If you will make holes, Horace, I must make darns," she said.
"Not a natural sequence at all!" he retorted testily. "When the wear and tear of time becomes visible in my underwear it must be relegated to Reuben."
"But Reuben's affinity for patches may be no stronger than your own,
Uncle Horace," said Evadne mischievously.
Mr. Everidge waved his sock-capped hands with a gesture of disdain. "The lower orders, my dear Evadne, are incapable of those delicate perceptions which constitute the mental atmosphere of those of finer mould. The delft does not feel the blow which would shiver the porcelain into atoms, and Reuben's epidermis is, I imagine, of such a horny consistency that he would walk in oblivious unconcern upon these elevations of needlework which are as a ploughshare to my sensitive nerves. It is the penalty one has to pay for being of finer clay than the common herd of men."
Evadne looked at Mrs. Everidge. A deep flush of shame had dyed her cheeks and her lips were quivering.
"Oh, Horace," she cried, "Reuben is such a faithful boy!"
"My dear," said her husband airily, "I make no aspersions against his moral character, but he certainly cannot be classed among the velvet-skinned aristocracy. By the way, I wish you would see in future that my undergarments are of a silken texture. My flesh rebels at anything approaching to harshness," and then he went complacently back to his library to weave and fashion the graceful phrases which flowed from his facile pen.
"Why should he go clothed in silk and you in cotton!" cried Evadne, jealous for the rights of her friend.
Mrs. Everidge's eyes came back from one of their long journeys, "Oh, I have learned the luxury of doing without," she said lightly.
Evadne threw her arms around her impulsively. "But why, oh, Aunt Marthe, why should not Uncle Horace learn it too?"