“Come, young people! how long are you going to keep me waiting? Breakfast is cooling fast!”
“I beg your pardon, Auntie! I did not notice that it had been brought in,” apologized Mabel, drawing back, that Frederic might lift the loaded salver carefully to its place upon the board.
As they were closing about this, they were joined by Messrs. Barksdale and Branch, Miss Tabb delaying her appearance until the repast was nearly over, and meeting the raillery of the party upon her late rising with the sweet, soft smile her cousin-betrothed admired as the indication of unadulterated amiability. The breakfast-hour, always pleasant, was to-day particularly merry. Rosa led off in the laughing debates, the play of repartee, friendly jest, and anecdote that incited all to mirth and speech and tempted them to linger around the table long after the business of the meal was concluded.
“This is the perfection of country life!” said Frederic Chilton, when, at last, there was a movement to end the sitting. “But it spoils one fearfully for the everyday practicalities of the city—a Northern city, especially.”
“Better stay where you are, then, instead of deserting our ranks to-morrow,” suggested Rosa, gliding by his side out upon the long portico at the end of the house. “What does your nature crave that Ridgeley cannot supply?”
“Work, and a career!”
“You still feel the need of these?” significantly.
“Otherwise I were no man!”
“You are right!”
Her disdainful eyes wandered to the farther end of the portico, where Alfred Branch, in his natty suit of white grasscloth, plucked at his ebon whiskers with untanned fingers, and talked society nothings with the ever-complaisant Imogene.