“Society,” said Uncle Luke, after pausing for a moment to turn towards the window, a gust having given it a tremendous shake. “I say, if I find my place blown away, can you find me a dry shed or a dog kennel or something, Leslie?”
“Don’t talk such stuff, Luke Vine,” cried Mrs Van Heldre. “Don’t take any notice of him, Mr Leslie, he’s a rich old miser and nothing else. Now, Luke Vine, what do you mean?”
“Said what I meant, society. Why didn’t you ask my sister to dinner? She’d have set us all right, eh, Madelaine?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Madelaine, smiling.
“But I do,” cried her mother; “she’d have set us all by the ears with her nonsense. You are a strange pair.”
“We are—we are. Nice sherry this, Van.”
“Glad you like it,” said Van Heldre, with his eyes turned towards the window, as if he expected news.
“How a woman can be so full of pride and so useless puzzles me.”
“Mamma!” whispered Madelaine, with an imploring look.
“Let her talk, my clear,” said Uncle Luke, “it doesn’t hurt any one. Don’t talk nonsense, Van’s wife. What use could you make of her? She is like the thistle that grows up behind my place, a good-looking prickly plant, with a ball of down for a head. Let her be; you always get the worst of it. The more you excite her the more that head of hers sends out floating downy seeds to settle here and there and do mischief. She has spoiled my nephew Harry, and nearly spoiled my niece.”