“Who is Miller, Syd dear?”
“Our chemistry chap at Loamborough. He shows us how when you mix acids and alkalis together they form new combinations which go off in gas.”
“Indeed, dear! Your studies must be very interesting.”
“Oh, they are, auntie—awfly. That’s how it is with the marmalade and the fresh butter—this is real fresh butter, isn’t it?”
“Of course, dear. Whatever did you think it was?”
“Dab, aunt dear. Margarine. That wouldn’t do, of course; but the marmalade’s nearly all sugar—that’s carbon—and the butters all carbon, too; and then there’s a lot of acid in the oranges, and it all combines, and one kills the other and does you good. It never hurts me. Shall I give you some game pie, auntie?”
“Thank you, no, my dear, but you may pass me the dry toast. Thanks. Pass your cup, my child.”
Sydney Smithers, who, to use his own term, had been “going in” deeply for the marmalade, went backwards in his arrangement of the breakfast comestibles, and helped himself liberally to the game pie, especially the gelatinous portion, glancing once at the pale, handsome, sedate-looking lady presiding at the head of the table ready to meet his eyes and bestow a smile upon the dear child, her nephew, who made the Denes his home, when he was not at Loamborough spending his last terms before commencing a college career.
“Such a dear, sweet boy,” Lady Lisle often said to herself, as she beamed upon him blandly with thirty-five-year-old eyes, and idolised him, as she had no children of her own, and he was her own special training.
“At it again,” said the boy to himself, as he glanced at the lady furtively; “more letters. Lady doctors, lady barristers. Blest if I don’t think she means to go in for a lady parson! More meetings to go to, auntie dear?” he said aloud.