"Gracious, no!" Mr. Flower would retort. "Don't flatter yourself, old
girl. I've got my eye on two or three fine young women who'll be glad
of the job, I assure you;" but this, perhaps, proving too much for poor
Mrs. Flower, whose tears were never far away, and apt to require
smelling-salts, he would change his tone in an instant and say, dropping
into his Derbyshire "thous,"--

"Nonsense, lass, can't thee take a bit of a joke? Come now, come. Don't
be silly. Thou knowest well enough what thou art to me, and so do the
girls. See, let's have a drive out to Livingstone Cemetery this
afternoon. Thou'rt a bit out o' sorts. It'll cheer thee up a bit."

And so Mrs. Flower would recover, and harmony would be restored, and
nobody would wink for a quarter of an hour. Certainly it was a quaint
little mother for an Angel.




CHAPTER XXIV

AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN


"When are you going to read me my poem?" said Angelica, one day.

"When are you going to tell me what I asked?" replied Henry.

"Whenever you read me my poem," retorted Angelica.