“That comes of having to wear my elder sister’s outgrown shoes. But if I had had my footgear made for me, my feet would probably have been flat and large; and the sight of an incipient bunion brings back glorious memories of childhood’s makeshifts, and the joy of trying on coveted and outgrown clothes. We weren’t proud as children. And the bread and butter and onions we ate for supper tasted lots better than the eight-o’clock dinner I take now with Dickie.”
She sighed deeply, and became suddenly grave.
“All the rest have big families themselves,” she added wistfully. “I’m just out of it.”
“Children are mixed blessings,” he said consolingly.
“They aren’t,” she asserted. “They give one the satisfied feeling of carrying on. When we haven’t children, we just finish with our own little lives.” She sat up and smiled at him with cheerful encouragement. “I have invited a girl for you this evening. She is young and fresh and—”
“Oh, don’t!” he interposed hastily.
“She is quite nice to look at,” Mrs Carruthers resumed, not heeding his interruption. “She comes of good stock, and is amiable, and not too clever. She dances well, and plays games well, and is thoroughly domesticated,—an orphan, poor,—the eldest of a family of seven.”
“Ye gods!” he murmured. “Why didn’t you invite the other six?”
“They aren’t out,” replied Mrs Carruthers.
He repressed a desire to smile.