“Yes, Harriet, it is, though I get it direct from the East,” he rejoined. His whole attitude betokened reproof.
“The East,” interposed Mevrouw, from her tambour-frame. “Quite so. I wonder, when Laban welcomed Jacob, do you think he gave him tea?”
“Coffee, rather, I should fancy,” replied Mopius.
“Do you really believe they drank coffee, Jacóbus?[C] I wish I was sure”—for the fiftieth time that day (as every day) she fell to contemplating her work with arrested needle. “I could so well fill up this corner with a little table, and put on the rolls and cups and things.”
“And work an ‘L’ in the napkin corner,” suggested Harriet.
Mevrouw Mopius gazed suspiciously into her niece’s face, but Harriet’s expression was perfectly serious.
“And—work—an—‘L’—into—the—napkin—corner,” repeated Mevrouw Mopius, very slowly. “Well, I think that might be nice.”
Ursula had just extinguished her light, and was dozing off into a dream-land of Mopiuses and Jonkers, when the door opened and Harriet entered hurriedly, candle in hand, a white wrap flung loosely about her.
“I didn’t knock,” she said. “Knocks are heard all over a house at night.”