And the visitor hurried away.
“What’s in that box, do you think?” inquired Miss Sibby.
“Oh, curtains, or stair carpet, or rugs, or something for the house! They are allus a-coming! Only I ’most in general get a letter first to tell me where to send for them,” said Mrs. Anglesea.
“I would like to see the pattern o’ them rugs and curtains and things! Fashions do change so much, I would ralely like to see what the present fashion is! Ef you don’t keep up with the times, sez I, the times will leave you behind, sez I!”
“Well, we’ll open the box after dinner, Miss Sibby, but we can’t before. Dinner is ready to go on the table now, and it mustn’t be spoiled by keeping. It’s spring lamb and spinach, raised under glass——”
“Spring lamb and spinach the fourteenth of February! Never!” exclaimed the descendant of the Howards.
“Yes, but it is. Having the conveniences to do it with, I don’t see why we shouldn’t have the luxuries. Having the hotbeds, why not the spinach? That’s what I say to Jake and to Luce. And let me tell you them niggers live just as well as I do.”
“Lamb and spinach!” gasped Miss Sibby.
“And that ain’t all. Fresh fish, caught in the bay this morning, to begin with. And meringo pudding to finish off with. And a good bottle of wine to go all the way through with it. It isn’t often as I meddle with the wine cellar, though the ole man and ’oman did tell me to help myself—give me carte wheel, as they called it, to do as I please with what’s left in the vault. Most of it, to be sure, was took to Washington. Still I never makes free with the wine, ‘cept on high days and holidays. And there’s the bell, so now we’ll go in to dinner.”