Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/90

 She urged with the vivid earnestness of twenty years.

“My dear lady,” he brought out finally, “you are like Greek architecture or Eastlake furniture or—or ‘God Save the Queen’—perfectly absolute! And I am so hideously relative— But, after all, why should a sense of humor be an essential? One is really more complete—I suppose Mahomet had none— When shall I begin?”

The interested villagers were informed early and regularly of the progress of the latest scheme of their benefactress. Henry and Mr. Waters furnished most satisfactory and detailed bulletins to gatherings of leisurely and congenial spirits, who listened with incredulous amazement to the accounts of Mr. Welles’s proceedings.

“Him an’ that hired man o’ his, they have took more stuff over to them Rooms than you c’d shake a stick at! I never see nothing like it—never! Waxed that