“Really, Alice, you’re too young; you mustn’t be getting into wanting wine so early in the day, it’ll spoil your digestion.”
“Oh! Nonsense, mamma! Everybody takes it now; it’ll do me good, you’ll see. Mark often gives me wine; he’s a dear good brother is Mark.”
Mrs Rothwell sighs, and takes a sip of sherry: she is beginning to brighten up.
“What in the world did your father mean by asking old Mr Tankardew to the party to-night?” she exclaims, turning to her elder daughters.
“Mean! Mamma—you may well ask that: the old scarecrow! They say he looks like a bag of dust and rags.”
“Mark says,” cries her sister, “that he’s just the image of a stuffed Guy Fawkes, which the boys used to carry about London on a chair.”
“Well, my dears, we must make the best of matters, we can’t help it now.”
“Oh! I daresay it’ll be capital fun,” exclaims Alice; “I shall like to see Mark doing the polite to ‘Old Tanky,’ as he calls him.”
“Come, Miss Pert, you must mind your behaviour,” says Florence; “remember, Mr Tankardew is a gentleman and an old man.”
“Indeed, Miss Gravity, but I’m not going to learn manners of you; mamma pays Miss Craven to teach me that, so good-bye;” and the child, with a mocking courtesy towards her sister, runs out of the room laughing.