Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/167

 every reason to consider themselves connoisseurs in this particular dish.

Mrs. Fallow-Deer tasted of nearly every dish, and grew rosier and jollier at every course.

Of all the guests there gathered, two only seemed a little out of the general tone of mirth and jollity, and these two were the very ones in whom we have the most interest. Gladys Carleton was inclined to be quiet and distraite, eating little, and that little with nervous haste. Larkington's appetite was not so voracious as it might have been, considering the fact that for the last week he had breakfasted on a roll from the bake-shop brought in surreptitiously by Stirrups, and a cup of tea made over the gas-burner by that same devoted individual, who, as financial affairs grew darker for his master, became more and more familiar with him, and comforted by a touching devotion the man to whom he was loyally attached.

The very rolls for the morning's scanty