"And no wonder. You are both giddy children."
"Until to-day, when you have turned his head, he has been very aged in manner. Please let him alone hereafter; he is my property."
"Keep him wholly," and the amused look did not pass from Mildred's face until service began.
Dinner was even a greater success than breakfast. Mrs. Jocelyn had become better acquainted with Mrs. Atwood during the drive, and they were beginning to exchange housekeeping opinions with considerable freedom, each feeling that she could learn from the other. Fearing justly that a long period of poverty might be before them, Mrs. Jocelyn was awakening to the need of acquiring some of Mrs. Atwood's power of making a little go a great way, and the thought of thus becoming able to do something to assist her absent husband gave her more animation than she had yet shown in her exile. Mildred ventured to fill her vase with some hardy flowers that persisted in blooming under neglect, and to place it on the table, and she was greatly amused to see its effect on Roger and Mr. Atwood. The latter stared at it and then at his wife.
"Will any one take some of the flowers?" he asked at last, in ponderous pleasantry.
"I think we all had better take some, father," said Roger. "I would not have believed that so little a thing could have made so great a difference."
"Well, what is the difference?"
"I don't know as I can express it, but it suggests that a great deal might be enjoyed that one could not put in his mouth or his pocket."
"Mr. Roger," cried Belle, "you are coming on famously. I didn't know that you were inclined, hitherto, to put everything you liked in your mouth or pocket. What escapes some people may have had."
"I never said I liked you," retorted the youth, with a touch of the broad repartee with which he was accustomed to hold his own among the girls in the country.