"Egad, ma'am, you are very parental!" Harry grinned. "You will be talking to me like a mother—and a stern mother, I protest."
"Am I stern?" Mrs. Weston looked at him with eyes penitent and tender.
"Only to yourself, I think. Lud, ma'am, why take me to heart?"
"What now, Harry?" Alison and Susan close linked came back again. "Whose heart are you taking?"
"Why, madame's," said Harry, with a flourish. "You see, ma'am," he turned to Susan, "I've a gift for making folks cry."
"Oh. Like an onion," says she, in her slow, grave fashion.
"Susan dear! How perfect," Alison laughed. "Now I know why I am growing tired of him. A little, you know, was piquant. But a whole onion to myself—God help us!"
"Yet your onion goes well with a goose," Harry said.
"Alack, Harry, but there's nothing sage about you and me."
"Oh, fie! See there she sits, our domestic sage"—he waved at Mrs.
Weston.