'Is trimmings an Americanism?' I asked. 'I never heard it before. But I dare say it is an expression peculiar to Boston, perhaps.'
'You had better not have any doubt,' said Miss Corke, with mock ferocity, 'of anything you hear in England.'
'I've heard fixings often at home,' I declared, 'but never trimmings.'
'Oh!' remarked Miss Corke, genially; 'then fixings is the correct expression.'
'I don't know,' I said, 'about its being the correct expression. Our washerwoman uses it a good deal.'
'Oh!' said Miss Corke, with an indescribable inflection of amusement; and then she looked at me over the top of her teacup, as much as to say, 'you had better not go too far!'
'Are your father and mother living?' she asked; and just then I noticed that it was twenty minutes past four by the clock. I answered Miss Corke in the affirmative, and naturally I was glad to be able to; but I have often wondered since why that invariable interest in the existence or non-existence of a person's parents should prevail in England as it does. I have seldom been approached by any one in a spirit of kindly curiosity with a different formula. 'Any brothers and sisters?' Miss Corke went on. 'When did you come? Where did you go first? How long do you mean to stay? What have you seen? Did you expect us to be as we are, or do we exceed your expectations? Have you ever travelled alone before? Are you quite sure you like the feeling of being absolutely independent? Don't you love our nice old manners and customs? and won't you wish when you get back that you could put your President on a golden throne, with an ermine robe, and a sceptre in his right hand?'
Miss Corke gave me space between these questions for brief answers, but by the time I looked at the clock again, and saw that it was twenty-five minutes past four, to the best of my recollection, she had asked me twelve. I liked it immensely—it made conversation so easy; but I could not help thinking, in connection with it, of the capacity for interrogation, which I had always heard credited exclusively to Americans.
'Peter,' said Lady Torquilin at last, a little tired of it, 'ask something about me; I haven't seen you for weeks.'
'Dear lady,' said Peter, 'of course I will. But this is something new, you see, so one takes an ephemeral—very ephemeral!—interest in it.'