“One is my grandmother, and the others are my aunts.”
“Oh, really? I should think you’d like the grandmother one. You know if you don’t have a grandmother already you can’t ever get one, and you can get a wife and daughters.”
“That’s very true,” acknowledged the rector. “I suppose you haven’t a grandmother yourself?”
“No, but I have a father—an only father. You know what that is, I suppose; only fathers are a great deal of care. Mine needs a lot of looking after.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” suggested the rector. “I’ll lend you my grandmother once in a while! That is, if you will come over and help me occasionally, I will. I hope you’ll have the time to come. You don’t have to look after your father every minute, do you?”
“Oh, no,” she replied. “He’s away a good deal. But I think I ought to see her before I borrow her, don’t you?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the rector again. “If you’ll come into the house I’ll call her, and my aunts, too. I’m so glad you don’t mind their not being my wife and daughters.”
He held open for her the door of the little parlor, and was starting toward the stairs when Miss Torrington called: “Oh—er—!”
When the rector turned toward her she said: “I’d like to send up my cards, please. I don’t often get a chance to use them, you know, and—”
The rector said, gravely: “I quite understand. I ought to have thought of it. I never send my own cards up to them, and I suppose that’s why I forgot.” He was about to take them in his hand, but Miss Torrington drew them back.