"You have not got shabby manners," said Elizabeth indignantly. "Arthur, when I offer a few light reflections on life and manners there is no need to delve—you and Father—into the subject and make us uncomfortable imagining we haven't got things. Personally, I don't aspire to such heights, and I flatter myself I'm rather a popular person."
"An ideal minister's daughter, I'm told," said Arthur.
"Pouf! I'm certainly not that. I'm sizes too large for the part. I have positively to uncoil myself like a serpent when I sit at bedsides. I'm as long as a day without bread, as they say in Spain. But I do try very hard to be nice to the church folk. My face is positively stiff with grinning when I come home from socials and such like. An old woman said to me one day, 'A kirk is rale like a shop. In baith o' them ye've to humour yer customers!'"
"A very discerning old woman," said her father. "But you must admit, Elizabeth, that our 'customers' are worth the humouring."
"Oh! they are—except for one or two fellows of the baser sort—and I do think they appreciate our efforts."
This smug satisfaction on his sister's part was too much for Buff in his state of revolt against society. He finished laying a carmine cloud across a deeply azure sky, and said:
"It's a queer thing that all the Elizabeths in the world have been nasty—Queen Elizabeth and—and"—failing to find another historical instance, he concluded rather lamely, pointing with his paint-brush at his sister—"you!"
"This," Mr. Townshend remarked, "is a most unprovoked attack!"
"Little toad," said Elizabeth, looking kindly at her young brother. "Ah, well, Buff, when you are old and grey and full of years and meet with ingratitude——"
"When I'm old," said Buff callously, "you'll very likely be dead!"