her on the back, and then she laughed the more.
But her mother was a fine corrective at the other end of the table; to whom her father, in the innocence of his good-fellowship, at intervals appealed with: “My dear, I am afraid you are not enjoying yourself?”
“Why so, R. W. ?” she would sonorously reply.
“Because, my dear, you seem a little out of sorts.”
“Not at all,” would be the rejoinder, in exactly the same tone.
“Would you take a merry-thought, my dear?”
“Thank you. I will take whatever you please, R. W. ”
“Well, but my dear, do you like it?”
“I like it as well as I like anything, R. W. ” The stately woman would then, with a meritorious appearance of devoting herself to the general good, pursue her dinner as if she were feeding somebody else on high public grounds.