“No matter, Mrs. Bemby. I can soon cool it here.”
“Miss Lulie, which will you have?”
“I will thank you for a glass of milk.”
“Well, Miss Carlotta?”
“A cup of tea, if you please.”
“Mr. John, tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, I believe, madam.”
“Old man, you’ll have coffee, I know,” she said, putting the sugar in Mr. B—— ‘s cup.
Poor Ben had been watching carefully, but could not possibly decide what was au fait under the circumstances, so that when his turn came he resolved, as the safest course, to follow father’s example, and, in response to his mother’s inquiry, replied that he would take some of both, and “sorter cool the tea while he was getting down the coffee.”
Mrs. Bemby’s eyes certainly looked natural in their surprise at his answer. Lulie, whose face had been red with restrained laughter since she had seen him, now broke into an irresistible titter, to which Ben replied by a grin, without a sound.