Arethusa looked doubtfully at the artichoke. Recollections of Miss Eliza as to the criticism of food put before one, made her temporize.
"I know other things I've eaten that I like much better." She was perfectly courteous in manner, but her tone decidedly lacked in enthusiasm. Then she added, hastily, fearing that she might have offended by even this statement, "I may get used to it, if I eat enough of them. Aunt 'Liza says you can acquire tastes." She smiled at Ross apologetically. "I never saw one before, you know."
"You'll do, Arethusa," laughed Ross.
And Elinor smilingly told her that its eating was not at all compulsory, but Arethusa was game. When she celebrated, she celebrated with no half measure, so she finished her artichoke to the last bitter leaf, though she did not like that last leaf any better than she had the first.
But it would be most unfair to chronicle all of Arethusa's vicissitudes and mistakes during the course of that long dinner; her struggles with her strange multitude of table-ware, which had a propensity for disappearing decidedly odd, but to which Ross's own augmented supply might have given her a clue, had she looked more sharply near his plate, and the eating of dishes new to her and not always liked. For, new dishes or not, Arethusa partook with heartiness of everything that came her way; even to the tiny cup of coffee at the very end, with its baby spoon which had so enraptured her as like a doll's, and which had vanished mysteriously before she could use it so that George had had to bring another.
She sighed the sigh of the well-fed when it was all over.
"I feel just like I would burst," she announced, as she pushed back from the table. "We don't have half this much to eat at night at home!"
"Would you," asked Ross, most amused, "like to go to bed and sleep it off? The instinct for which the lower animals are so commended leads them to some such sensible proceeding after over-feeding, I believe."
"Go to bed!" exclaimed Arethusa, indignant at the bare suggestion. "Why, we never think of going to bed at the Farm before nine or half-past; and sometimes, even ten!"
"Ye gods! What hours! I'm surprised at Miss Eliza's permitting it!"