"Nervous prostration patients have to be careful about their diet, don't they?" ventured Miss Mullaly.
"She hasn't got it!" snapped Mrs. Crump.
"She thinks she has." Miss Castlevaine's thick lips curved in a smile of scorn.
"If she can't digest things, it won't do her much good to eat them," interposed Miss Major positively. "Nobody could digest these waffles—they're slack this morning."
Miss Castlevaine gave her plate a little push. "I wish I needn't ever see another waffle," she fretted.
"Oh!" exclaimed the "new lady," "I don't understand how anybody can get tired of waffles!"
"Nor I!" laughed Miss Mullaly's right-hand neighbor. "I shall have to tell you about the time I went to Cousin Dorothy's wedding luncheon.
"I never had eaten waffles but once; that was at my aunt's. She had gone to housekeeping directly after the wedding ceremony, and was spoken of in the family as 'the bride.' I had been her first guest, and, as she had treated me to waffles, I thought waffles and brides always went together. So when I was included in the invitation to Dorothy's wedding luncheon, my first thought was of waffles. I said something about it to my brother, and Ralph was just tease enough to lead me on. He told me that the table would be piled with waffles, great stacks of them at every plate! Like a little dunce I believed it all and went to that party anticipating a blissful supply of waffles. In vain I looked up and down the elegant table! I ate and ate, but never a waffle appeared! Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I piped out, 'Cousin Dorothy, please can I have my waffles now?' Of course, my mother was dreadfully mortified, for some of the guests were strangers, and very great people; but Dorothy took it as a mighty good joke, and even after I was married she used to laugh about my 'w'awful' disappointment. I've not gotten over my appetite for waffles either! I believe I could eat and relish them three times a day."
"You couldn't! Just wait till you've had 'em fifty-two times a year, five years running—as I have!" Mrs. Crump's lips made a straight line.
"Mrs. Crump has kept tabs on her waffles," giggled Miss Crilly.
"How many does this morning make—five hundred and—?"