"I'm awfully sorry," stammered out Mr. Benson, while his friend could hardly repress a smile at witnessing the autocrat of "Herford Brothers," before whom twenty clerks trembled when he frowned, being scolded and scorned by a neat little woman in a shabby silk gown and white curls.
There was wine on the table.
"Before you half kill the mother, as well as the daughter, you had better bring her down here and give her a glass of that sherry if it is decent wine," proceeded Miss Mason.
"It is, ma'am,—it is very fair sherry," said the crestfallen Mr. Benson. "You don't think that she will faint too, do you?"
Miss Mason's only answer was, "I will fetch her myself," and she walked off.
Mrs. Denham did not faint, but it was a most distressing scene, and Miss Mason took command of the whole family.