“Good-morning, my dear,” said the doctor, bending down to kiss the pleasantly plump elderly lady who had just opened the dining-room door, and keeping up the fiction of its being their first meeting that morning.
“Good-morning, dear.”
“Come, Vane, my boy,” cried the doctor, “breakfast, breakfast. Here’s aunt in one of her furious tempers because you are so late.”
“Don’t you believe him, my dear,” said the lady. “It’s too bad. And really, Thomas, you should not get in the habit of telling such dreadful fibs even in fun. Had a nice walk, Vane?”
“Yes, aunt, and collected a capital lot of edible fungi.”
“The word fungi’s enough to make any one feel that they are not edible, my dear,” said Aunt Hannah. “What sort did you get? Not those nasty, tall, long-legged things you brought before?”
“No, aunt; beautiful golden chanterelles. I wanted to have them cooked for breakfast.”
“And I have told him it would be high treason,” said the doctor. “Martha would give warning.”
“No, no, my dear, not quite so bad as that, but leave them to me, and I’ll cook them for lunch myself.”
“No need, aunt; Martha came down from her indignant perch.”