There was something doing.
First, I told old Mary that I was going to have company.
One ordinarily does not ask permission of one's cook, but Mary was such a mother to me that I felt the announcement to be no more than her due.
"Who is it, Missus, dear?"
"Miss Flora Forsyth. Have you ever heard me speak of her?"
"Do you mean that blonde on the mantelpiece?" she asked, in the conversational tone of one who but passed the time o' day.
"Mary!" I said.
She walked up to Flora's picture, took it down, looked at it, and put it back.
"Well," I said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
"What do I think of her?" demanded Mary, wheeling on me so suddenly that I dodged. "I think she is a little blister—that's what I think of her. And you'll rue the day you ever asked her into your house."