“Lawsy, now!” exclaimed Mrs. Widdup; “ain’t that right? Seems like it’s in the air.”
“‘In the spring,’” continued old Mr. Coulson, “‘a livelier iris shines upon the burnished dove.’”
“They do be lively, the Irish,” sighed Mrs. Widdup pensively.
“Mrs. Widdup,” said Mr. Coulson, making a face at a twinge of his gouty foot, “this would be a lonesome house without you. I’m an—that is, I’m an elderly man—but I’m worth a comfortable lot of money. If half a million dollars’ worth of Government bonds and the true affection of a heart that, though no longer beating with the first ardour of youth, can still throb with genuine—”
The loud noise of an overturned chair near the portières of the adjoining room interrupted the venerable and scarcely suspecting victim of May.
In stalked Miss Van Meeker Constantia Coulson, bony, durable, tall, high-nosed, frigid, well-bred, thirty-five, in-the-neighbourhood-of-Gramercy-Parkish. She put up a lorgnette. Mrs. Widdup hastily stooped and arranged the bandages on Mr. Coulson’s gouty foot.
“I thought Higgins was with you,” said Miss Van Meeker Constantia.
“Higgins went out,” explained her father, “and Mrs. Widdup answered the bell. That is better now, Mrs. Widdup, thank you. No; there is nothing else I require.”
The housekeeper retired, pink under the cool, inquiring stare of Miss Coulson.
“This spring weather is lovely, isn’t it, daughter?” said the old man, consciously conscious.