"Whoever heard of brown buckwheat cakes; they are always very light coloured."
"I beg your pardon, but they are not, as far as my observation goes," said her husband; "then these are thick, they ought to be thin and delicate-looking."
"You are thinking of something else, Philip," said Mrs. Thorne, patronisingly. "Buckwheat cakes never look differently from these; I have noticed them at a great many places."
"You never ate them at my mother's or you could not say so, my dear."
Mrs. Thorne stirred her coffee vigorously. Was Philip going to turn out to be one of those detestable men who always go about telling how "their mother" used to do; "my mother," as if there was no other mother in the world that amounted to anything.
"I always have noticed," she said, "that a person imagines, after being from home a few years that there is nothing quite so good as he used to get at home; even the very same things never tasted quite as they used to. The reason is plain: taste changes as one grows older."
This very sage remark was just a little annoying to Mr. Thorne; he was ten years the senior of his wife, and did not like allusions to "growing older." "No one need try to convince me," he answered quite warmly, "that I shall ever cease to enjoy the dishes my mother used to get up if I live to be as old as Methuselah! She is the best cook I ever knew, and she never made cakes like these."
"My mother is a pattern housekeeper," said Mrs. Thorne, with a little flash of her blue eye, "and her cakes look precisely like these."
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating, you will admit, I suppose. Joanna need bring in no more cakes for me; they have a sour, bitter taste which is decidedly unpalatable."
And he arose from the table, passed into the hall and out of the front door without his usual leave-taking.