"Only you ought to explain, Clara--" Le Geyt began, in a deprecatory
tone.
"Now, you darling old bear, we won't harp on that twice-told tale
again," Clara interrupted, with a knowing smile. "Point da rechauffes!
Let us leave one another's misdeeds and one another's explanations for
their proper sphere--the family circle. The orchids did NOT turn up,
that is the point; and I managed to make shift with the plumbago and the
geraniums. Maisie, my sweet, NOT that pudding, IF you please; too rich
for you, darling. I know your digestive capacities better than you do.
I have told you fifty times it doesn't agree with you. A small slice of
the other one!"
"Yes, mamma," Maisie answered, with a cowed and cowering air. I felt
sure she would have murmured, "Yes, mamma," in the selfsame tone if the
second Mrs. Le Geyt had ordered her to hang herself.
"I saw you out in the park, yesterday, on your bicycle, Ettie," Le
Geyt's sister, Mrs. Mallet, put in. "But do you know, dear, I didn't
think your jacket was half warm enough."
"Mamma doesn't like me to wear a warmer one," the child answered, with a
visible shudder of recollection, "though I should love to, Aunt Lina.
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