“I would give a hundred pounds,” said Arthur, “if I had it, to see Mrs. Collingwood tipsy.”
“It would do her a world of good,” said Miss Fortescue. “Her only chance of learning to forgive any one for drinking lies in drinking too much herself. I can not stand people who think that the miracle at Cana consisted in water being turned into fruit syrup.”
“Don’t be profane, Aunt Em,” said Jeannie.
Aunt Em cast her eyes to the ceiling. She had finished her pâté.
“I don’t know whom we are waiting for,” she observed.
“No one, dear, if you have finished,” said Jeannie. “Come out, Arthur. The revelations shall begin.”
Aunt Em had a horror of damp grass, even when only the soles of her strong boots rested on it, and she always had a rug spread by her chair, on which she could put her feet. Ripe mulberries from the tree not infrequently fell on it, and when Aunt Em got up she usually trod on them with her strong boots, and made an indelible stain. But her silence had been so thundery when Jeannie suggested that a piece of matting would do as well that no one had ventured again to propose any substitute for her valuable Persian rug.
“Now, Arthur,” said Jeannie, as soon as coffee had come, “I’m going to tell you and Aunt Em all that has happened. Aunt Em, dear, don’t toss your head; you only know the less important piece of it.”
“Well, it all began this morning. Aunt Em and I went to the Art Exhibition, and saw there a picture of me and Toby by Mr. Collingwood.”
“I thought you had never seen him,” he said.
“I didn’t think I had. But, apparently, he had seen me. Oh, there was no mistaking it. It was a picture of Toby shaking himself, and me keeping him off with a parasol. I remember it happening perfectly. I had on a new dress, as Aunt Em and I had been calling, and afterward we had tea down by the mill.”
“I know it isn’t; but that is not all. On the way out of the exhibition I met Miss Clifford carrying catalogues. When I told her I was surprised at seeing the picture, she was filled with such dismay that she dropped them all, and we picked them up together. But before she dropped them she said, ‘But Colonel Raymond told me----’”
Jeannie suddenly burst into a peal of laughter.
“I know that man,” remarked Arthur. “He is like a person out of a book about the army by a lady. What did Colonel Raymond say?”