"With a method in their madness, I hope."
"Yes, all the almonds not on one side."
"In company with cheese-cakes, jelly, and pasty, simply,—I should have claret and crackers at home, Capua willing. Will it pay?"
"You shall have Port here, when Mrs. Laudersdale comes."
"Not old enough to be crusty yet, Kate," said her husband.
"Very good, for you, John!"
"Mrs. Laudersdale is your housekeeper?" asked her cousin.
"Mrs. Laudersdale? That is rich! But I should never dare to tell her. Our housekeeper? Our cynosure! She is our argent-lidded Persian Girl,—our serene, imperial Eleanore;—
"'Whene'er she moves,
The Samian Here rises, and she speaks
A Meinnon smitten with the morning sun.'"
"Oh, indeed! And this is a conventicle of young matrimonial victims to practise cookery in seclusion, upon which I have blundered?"