Her daughter laughs heartily. A wicked desire to shock Lady MacDonald, as Giddy has so often excited her to do on previous occasions, seizes Eleanor.
"Oh, no, Ma! We have big dinners at eight o'clock. Five courses and serviettes. You ask Lady MacDonald."
"I don't call this a cup," declares Mr. Grebby, grinning broadly as Eleanor hands him his tea. "It's more like an acorn!" He takes half a dozen slices of bread and butter and munches them hungrily.
"I'm a bit peckish, my girl," he says. "But then we've had a long day, and fastin' don't agree with me. We went to the Tower, Madame Tussaud's, and the Exhibition of Tortures in Leicester Square. We liked that best of all."
"But what did you do with Rover?" asks Eleanor, exciting the dog to jump on the sofa and patting his wet nose.
"We left him at Cousin Harriett's. We can stay the night here with you, and after that we are going to put up a bit at her lodging-house in Bloomsbury. Ma was set on bringing old Rover to see you, as we think he won't last long now."
"The dear fellow!" murmurs Eleanor, cutting the pink cake. "Some more tea, Lady MacDonald?"
"No, thank you," and the severity of the tone startles Eleanor.
She fears she has committed some deadly offence in offering this proud beauty a second cup. Never was there a more grotesque tea-party on the terrace than in Eleanor's boudoir that afternoon. Giddy with deepest shame, resentment and horror, raging in her heart. Lady MacDonald haughty and disdainful, eyeing the homely couple as she would the beasts at the Zoo. Mrs. Grebby, speechless in admiring silence, fingering the frills of the sofa cushions, and taking in the pattern of the wall-paper, her breast swelling with pride and gratification. Mr. Grebby, his large boots on the brightly polished fender, his red face wreathed in smiles, and slowly filling a short clay pipe, as bucolic a specimen of manhood as Copthorne could produce.
Lastly, Eleanor, looking perfectly fairy-like under the red lamp, caressing the old dog with her slim white hands, and talking first to one guest, then to the other, with supreme good nature, her father's basket of apples on her knee.