“What are you laughing at, Henry?”
“I was wondering if Robin could be persuaded to tell us her thoughts.”
Roberta became very pink. She had been reflecting on that agreeable attitude of mind which enabled the Lampreys, after a lifetime of pecuniary hazards, to feel the pinch of poverty upon the acquisition of an income of thirty thousand pounds. There they were, as solemn as owls, putting a brave face on penury and at the same time warming to the re-decoration of 24 Brummell Street.
“Robin,” said Henry, “I shall guess at your thoughts.”
“No, Henry, don’t. But you can make another kind of guess. What family in fiction would you most resemble if you belonged to a different class?”
“The Macbeths?” asked Frid. “No. Because, after all, Daddy and Mummy didn’t murder Uncle G. and the sleeping groom.”
“I think I’m rather a Spartan mother,” said Charlot. “Isn’t there a Spartan family in a play? That’s what we shall resemble in the future, I promise you.”
“I think Mummy’s Congrevian,” said Stephen.
“Millament?” murmured Lord Charles.
“Robin means ‘The Comedy of Errors,’ ” said Patch, “because of the twins.”