"Fine," said the other. "Mr. Jackson's real well, his indigestion is not troubling him at all, and the children are all at school, and I've had the drawing-room done up—Wylie and Lochhead—handsome. And how are you all?"
"Very well. I was just thinking about you the other day and minding that you have never seen our new house. I've changed my day to first Fridays, but just drop a p.c. and come any day."
"Aren't the shops nice just now? And it's lovely to see the sun shining.... Are you going? Well, be sure you come soon. Awful pleased to have met you. Good-bye."
"An example of 'wee-pleasedness,'" said Elizabeth.
"I find," said Arthur, "that I like the Glasgow accent. There is something so soft and—and——"
"Slushy?" she suggested. "But I know what you mean: there is a cosy feeling about it, and it is kindly. But don't you think this is a wonderfully good luncheon for one-and-sixpence?"
"Quite extraordinarily good. I can't think how they do it."
"An Oxford friend of Alan's once stayed with us, and the only good thing he could find to say of Glasgow was that in the tea-shops you could make a beast of yourself for ninepence."
Elizabeth laid down her coffee-cup with a sigh.
"I'm always sorry when meals are over," she said. "I like eating, though Mrs. Thomson would say, in her frank way, that I put good food into a poor skin—meaning that I'm a thin creature. I don't mind a bit a home—I'm quite content with what Marget gives me—but when I am, say, in Paris, where cooking is a fine art, I revel."