Miss Brown looked surprised. The poor suffragette’s attempts at polite interchange of fatuities never seemed to meet with the usual fate of such efforts. Her trivialities somehow always fell upon silence; if she ventured on the throwing of a light bridge over a gap in the conversation, it seemed to snap communication instead of furthering it. She was, of course, unlucky, but she was also, it must be admitted, too earnest in intention for petty intercourse. She tried too hard.
The buggy, commending its springs to the mercy of Providence, charged the drive of Park View.
On the door-step, carefully posed, Albert was reading a very large book. He started laboriously as the buggy approached, and placed the book under his arm, taking care that the title should be visible. An emaciated child, with manners too old, and clothes too young, for his years.
“I have dot bissed you at all, Ah-Bargaret,” said Miss Brown’s genial nephew. “I have been too idterested id by dew book od Chebistry. I ab quite sorry you have cob back.”
“Chemistry,” retailed Miss Brown to the lady novelist. “A child of ten. And—did you notice, he was so deep in his book, he got quite a start when we arrived.”
Albert, at Park View, met with that appreciation of his poses which we all hope to meet in heaven.
“Albert, you are to move into the back room,” said Miss Brown.
“Why?” asked Albert.
“To make room for this lady.”
“Priceless child,” said the lady novelist in brackets.