“Your hair is just like a pile of snow to-night,” said the sergeant, affectionately regarding the top of his wife’s head. “Do you know, boy, some people are mischievous enough to ask if that hair has been turned white on account of my sins?” and he laughed uproariously. “What do you tell them, Bess?”
“I tell them no,” she said, shaking her head. “We all turn gray in our family when we’re forty.”
“It gives you the appearance of being in grande toilette,” said Eugene, who had recovered his composure. “One could imagine you just stepping into your carriage to attend a ball.”
Mrs. Hardy looked pleased, and handed him a huge slice of cake.
The Hardys did not spend a very long time at the table; and when supper was over the sergeant withdrew to the garden to smoke, while Eugene begged to assist his hostess in carrying the dishes to the kitchen.
“Do you really want to do it?” she said earnestly; “or is it only your politeness that makes you ask? No, don’t answer quickly; take a minute to think.”
Out through the open window Eugene could see the little garden flooded with electric light from the near street, and the sergeant sauntering about it with a pipe in his mouth.
“You had rather be with him, had you not?” said Mrs. Hardy.
“I had,” replied Eugene, the words slipping out of his mouth before he could recall them.