"What won't they say next?" said Miss Fison.

"They do say such things!" said Mrs. Booch.

"They say," said Mrs. Mackridge, inflexibly, "the doctors are not
recomm-an-ding it now."

My Mother: "No, ma'am?"

Mrs. Mackridge: "No, ma'am."

Then, to the table at large: "Poor Sir Roderick, before he died,
consumed great quan-ta-ties of sugar. I have sometimes fancied it may
have hastened his end."

This ended the first skirmish. A certain gloom of manner and a pause was
considered due to the sacred memory of Sir Roderick.

"George," said my mother, "don't kick the chair!"

Then, perhaps, Mrs. Booch would produce a favourite piece from her
repertoire. "The evenings are drawing out nicely," she would say, or
if the season was decadent, "How the evenings draw in!" It was an
invaluable remark to her; I do not know how she would have got along
without it.

My mother, who sat with her back to the window, would always consider
it due to Mrs. Booch to turn about and regard the evening in the act of
elongation or contraction, whichever phase it might be.