“But she wasn’t surprised, was she?” asked the blue-eyed girl.
“Yes, she was. She—well, she was the other person who wanted to buy them, and whose inquiries had trebled the price I had to pay for them!”
“In the face of a tragedy like that, it seems hopeless to offer consolation,” said the girl with the classic profile. “Still, Elizabeth will be obliged to give you a handsome present when you are married.”
“Let us hope that she will not have had time to forget her obligations,” said the blue-eyed girl, sweetly. “Of course, she has a good memory, but—”
“I only hope somebody will give her two chafing-dishes,” broke in the president. “I only have one, and if I was not the sweetest tempered mortal in the world Tom and I would quarrel seriously over it. Perhaps, I ought not to speak of myself in that way, but—”
“You surely ought to know your good points better than anybody else does,” said the girl with the Roman nose.
“Very true, dear. You see, Tom thinks he is a chafing-dish cook, and really he can cook; but the last time he made a rarebit my waitress gave warning, because of the state in which she found the dining-room—which was very mean of her, because we had waited on ourselves to save trouble.”
“Partly for that, and partly because you wanted to talk about Coralie, and her sister is her cook, I remember—I was there,” said the blue-eyed girl.
“Yes, but she didn’t know that we wanted to talk about Coralie, and I told her that it was to save her trouble.”
“Wasn’t that the time that the rarebit made you ill, and the doctor couldn’t come because he, too, had eaten some of it?” asked the girl with the dimple in her chin.