was another tap at the door, and Frida crackling loudly in a clean pinafore came in to say that the bell for lunch was just going to ring.
"Yes, dear," said her aunt. "Uncle John knows already. Don't bother him now. He's tired after his journey. Come along, Harold."
"He can have my nailbrush if he likes," Harold offered.
"Run, darling, and get it quickly then."
Harold rushed out of the room and could be heard hustling his cousin all down the corridor, evoking complaints of "Don't, Harold, you rough boy, you're crumpling my frock."
The bell for lunch sounded gratefully at this moment, and John, without even washing his hands, hurried downstairs trying to look like a hungry ogre, so anxious was he to avoid using Harold's nailbrush.
The dining-room at Ambles was a long low room with a large open fireplace and paneled walls; from the window-seats bundles of drying lavender competed pleasantly with the smell of hot kidney-beans upon the table, at the head of which John took his rightful place; opposite to him, placid as an untouched pudding, sat Grandmama. Laurence said grace without being invited after standing up for a moment with an expression of pained interrogation; Edith accompanied his words by making with her forefinger and thumb a minute cruciform incision between two of the bones of her stays, and inclined her head solemnly toward Frida in a mute exhortation to follow her mother's example. Harold flashed his spectacles upon every dish in turn; Emily's waiting was during this meal of reunion colored with human affection.
"Well, I'm glad to be back in England," said John, heartily.
An encouraging murmur rippled round the table from his relations.
"Are these French beans from our own garden?" John asked presently.
"Scarlet-runners," Hilda corrected. "Yes, of course. We never trouble the greengrocer. The frosts have been so light … "
"I haven't got a bean left," said Laurence.
John nearly gave a visible jump; there was something terribly suggestive in that simple horticultural disclaimer.
"Our beans are quite over," added Edith in the astonished voice of one who has tumbled upon a secret of nature. She had a habit of echoing many of her husband's remarks like this; perhaps "echoing" is a bad description of her method, for she seldom repeated literally and often not immediately. Sometimes indeed she would wait as long as half an hour before she reissued in the garb of a personal philosophical discovery or of an exegitical gloss the most casual remark of Laurence, a habit which irritated him and embarrassed other people, who would look away from Edith and mutter a hurried agreement or ask for the salt to be passed.
"I remember," said old Mrs. Touchwood, "that beans were a favorite dish of poor Papa, though I myself always liked peas better."
"I like peas," Harold proclaimed.
"I like peas, too," cried Frida excitedly.
"Frida," said her father, pulling out with a click one of the graver tenor stops in his voice, "we do not talk at table about our likes and dislikes."
Edith indorsed this opinion with a grave nod at Frida, or rather with a solemn inclination of the head as if she were bowing to an altar.
"But I like new potatoes best of all," continued Harold. "My gosh, all buttery!"
Laurence screwed up his eye in a disgusted wince, looked down his nose at his plate, and drew a shocked cork from his throat.
"Hush," said Hilda. "Didn't you hear what Uncle Laurence said, darling?"
She spoke as one speaks to children in church when the organ begins; one felt that she was inspired by social tact rather than by any real reverence for the clergyman.
"Well, I do like new potatoes, and I like asparagus."
Frida was just going to declare for asparagus, too, when she caught her father's eye and choked.
"Evidently the vegetable that Frida likes best," said John, riding buoyantly upon the gale of Frida's convulsions, "is an artichoke."
It is perhaps lucky for professional comedians that rich uncles and judges rarely go on the stage; their occupation might be even more arduous if they had to face such competitors. Anyway, John had enough success with his joke to feel much more hopeful of being able to find suitable presents in Galton for Harold and Frida; and in the silence of exhaustion that succeeded the laughter he broke the news of his having to go into town and dispatch an urgent telegram that very afternoon, mentioning incidentally that he might see about a dog-cart, and, of course, at the same time a horse. Everybody applauded his resolve except his brother-in-law who looked distinctly put out.
"But you won't be gone before I get back?" John asked.
Laurence and Edith exchanged glances fraught with the unuttered solemnities of conjugal comprehension.
"Well, I had wanted to have a talk over things with you after lunch," Laurence explained. "In fact, I have a good deal to talk over. I should suggest driving you in to Galton, but I find it impossible to talk freely while driving. Even our poor old pony has been known to shy. Yes, indeed, poor old Primrose often shies."
John mentally blessed the aged animal's youthful heart, and said, to cover his relief, that old maids were often more skittish than young ones.
"Why?" asked Harold.
Everybody felt that Harold's question was one that should not be answered.
"You wouldn't understand, darling," said his mother; and the dining-room became tense with mystery.
"Of course, if we could have dinner put forward half an hour," said Laurence, dragging the conversation out of the slough of sex, "we could avail ourselves of the moon."
"Yes, you see," Edith put in eagerly, "it wouldn't be so dark with the moon."
Laurence knitted his brow at this and his wife hastened to add that an earlier dinner would bring Frida's bed-time much nearer to its normal hour.
"The point is that I have a great deal to talk over with John," Laurence irritably explained, "and that," he looked as if he would have liked to add "Frida's bed-time can go to the devil," but he swallowed the impious dedication and crumbled his bread.
Finally, notwithstanding that everybody felt very full of roast beef and scarlet-runners, it was decided to dine at half-past six instead of half-past seven.
"Poor Papa, I remember," said old Mrs. Touchwood, "always liked to dine at half-past three. That gave him a nice long morning for his patients and time to smoke his cigar after dinner before he opened the dispensary in the evening. Supper was generally cold unless he anticipated a night call, in which case we had soup."
All were glad that the twentieth century had arrived, and they smiled sympathetically at the old lady, who, feeling that her anecdote had scored a hit, embarked upon another about being taken to the Great Exhibition when she was eleven years old, which lasted right through the pudding, perhaps because it was trifle, and Harold did not feel inclined to lose a mouthful by rash interruptions.
After lunch John was taken all over the house and all round the garden
