The arrogance of these young married ladies! They are all alike. You may have seen scores of such pretty innocents installed in their first establishments. You may have known their existences from the time they played peg-top with their brothers to their perky airs over their first long frocks. You may have given them away amid rice and slippers at the rate of two a year, when their bridal blushes almost made your task superfluous. You may have known them from teething-ring to trousseau, from measles to marriage; and yet in the first wonder of a new baby life you will be told that you are an ignorant old bachelor, and that you know nothing of household affairs!
But I was not disposed to take any such talk from Mrs. Kit Carmichael. I was too old a friend of Carmichael’s, and could always make her tingle with curiosity by an artful hint of pre-nuptial reminiscence. Besides which, she herself was too much in my power. Distinctly, I had a right to rebuke her. I leaned back, and questioned her with forensic severity.
“Mrs. Carmichael,” I said, “you are young, but that is no excuse for ingratitude. Five years ago my advice was not superfluous. Whose experience was it selected you this little house, when Kit’s mind was too full of love to distinguish such details as sanitary arrangements?”
“I believe you gave some advice on the subject, Mr. Butterfield,” she retorted, “and we had workmen about the place for six months.”
I waived the thanklessness of the last phrase, and continued with dignity.
“Who put you through an exhaustive course of salads, Mrs. Carmichael?”
“Well, you were rather useful in the matter of salads,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Who gave you lessons in the refinements of black coffee?” I continued, warming in a righteous cause.
“My coffee was not bad,” Mrs. Kit returned, on her defence.
I magnanimously put aside criticism of her coffee, and went on with a wave of my hand.