Mrs. Howard brought in a plate of cookies and set it ostentatiously within his reach. "Lovely woman!" apostrophised George. "She feeds me! Radiant vision, will you be mine?"
There was a dead silence.
"Queer, isn't it," observed the guest, between mouthfuls, and apparently to himself, "that women should look so pretty when they're mad?"
"Your wife will be pretty all the time, then," said Mrs. Franklin.
"I trust so. She'll have to have a good start at it, or she won't get me, and with the additional stimulus which living with me will give her, she'll be nearly as lovely as the wives of the other officers at Fort Dearborn. I could give her no higher praise. These cookies are all gone."
"I know it," replied Mrs. Howard. "I gave you all I had left."
"If I might presume," said Ronald, "I'd like the prescription they were made by, to give to my wife, when I get one. I suppose it's more in the making than in the prescription, and though I'll undoubtedly like 'em, my native love of truth will oblige me to tell her that they don't come up to those Kitty—pardon me, Mrs. Howard—used to make for me. I always think of you by your first name," he went on. "I know it's wrong, but I can't help it. You're so good to me. Isn't there one more cooky?"
"No, there isn't."
"Your mother makes surpassing doughnuts. Did she ever teach you how?"