Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/22

14 (It is needless to say that he hates callers even worse than his friends, and with an intensity that you will find nowhere, save in the breast of a well-born, well-educated English gentleman, whose house and family are all that could be wished, and who has nothing in the world to be ashamed of.) Meanwhile, the cause of the commotion cools her heels upon the door-step, and is at last admitted, much as though she were something dangerous, or had come from a fever hospital, or was suspected of having intentions on the spoons.

Once in every three months the Skipworths are invited to dinner, and there our entertainments end, for no other strangers eat of our salt from January to December. How is it papa has not succeeded in quarrelling with the reverend gentleman, I cannot imagine, for goodness knows he has tried hard enough. Mr. Skipworth, however, is one of those dear affectionate souls who find it absolutely impossible to quarrel with any one who has it in his power to bestow certain substantial gifts; and when the governor slaps him on the one cheek, he is Christian enough to offer to him the other, and what is more, look as if he liked it. He is talking to mother now; a stout, sleek, pear-shaped man, whose legs always seem to me to have been swallowed up by his body, as the lesser rods were by Aaron's. He has a smile that would butter the whole neighbourhood; a smile that Jack and I hate, and would wipe off his face with a duster if we could. Papa is talking to Mrs. Skipworth. How the broad June sun is flooding her purple gown and purpler face! How hot and kind and uneasy she looks, for her dress is stretched across her tight as a drum! Poor soul, she squints; not harmlessly, wonderingly, inoffensively, but diabolically, while one eye appears to be surveying the person she addresses, the other is firmly fixed on some one the other side of the room. Jack and I have worn ourselves out in speculations as to whether she can see with both eyes at once, or only one; whether