A brisk discussion of how long we were to the longest or shortest day
would ensue, and die away at last exhausted.

Mrs. Mackridge, perhaps, would reopen. She had many intelligent habits;
among others she read the paper--The Morning Post. The other ladies
would at times tackle that sheet, but only to read the births,
marriages, and deaths on the front page. It was, of course, the old
Morning Post that cost threepence, not the brisk coruscating young thing
of to-day. "They say," she would open, "that Lord Tweedums is to go to
Canada."

"Ah!" said Mr. Rabbits; "dew they?"

"Isn't he," said my mother, "the Earl of Slumgold's cousin?" She knew
he was; it was an entirely irrelevant and unnecessary remark, but still,
something to say.

"The same, ma'am," said Mrs. Mackridge. "They say he was extremelay
popular in New South Wales. They looked up to him greatlay. I knew him,
ma'am, as a young man. A very nice pleasant young fella."

Interlude of respect.

"'Is predecessor," said Rabbits, who had acquired from some clerical
model a precise emphatic articulation without acquiring at the same time
the aspirates that would have graced it, "got into trouble at Sydney."

"Haw!" said Mrs. Mackridge, scornfully, "so am tawled."