"There, Gwenneth, what do you say?" Mrs. Doctor Cockburn's own mouth was full of prunes and prisms. "Thank you what--thank you, Grandpa."
"That's a good little gel." There was a geniality, an indulgence, in the tone of Josiah that he had never thought of extending to his own children in their nursery days. "And I tell you what, Ma--if they get a pain under their pinnies they must blame their old grand-dad."
Altogether, a pleasant episode, and to everybody, Gwenneth and Gwladys included, a welcome diversion.
"Have some more tea, Melia." Her father took her cup from her in spite of the protest her tongue was unable to utter and handed it to the inefficient lady in charge of the teapot. "And you must have a few strawberries. Fresh picked out of the garden. Ethel, touch that bell."
Mrs. Doctor, with an air of resolute fineladyism, pressed the electric button at her elbow. The grand parlor maid entered with a smile of imperfectly concealed cynicism.
Melia wondered how even her father was able to address Alice in that way; but his coolness ministered to the reluctant respect he was arousing in her by his manly attitude to his own grandeur.
The cream appeared. Gwenneth and Gwladys were forbidden to have any--their lives so far had been a series of negations and inhibitions--but Melia had some, although she didn't want it, but the will of her father was greater than her powers of resistance. And then he said to her, "When you've had your tea, I'll show you the greenus."
"Conservatory, Josiah," said Aunt Gerty with an arch preen of features and a show of plumage. "Much too big for a mere greenhouse."
"Greenus is more homelike, Gert. What do you say, Mother?" He laughed almost gayly at Maria. The eldest daughter was amazed at the change that seemed to be coming over her father. In the dismal days of drudgery and gloomy terrorism at the public house in Waterloo Square which now seemed so far away in the past, there was not a trace of this large and rich geniality. Prosperity, power, worldly success must have mellowed her father as well as enlarged him. He seemed so much bigger now, so much riper, he seemed to care more for others.
Ethel and Gertrude were quite put into the shade by the force and the heartiness of Josiah, but Mrs. Doctor was not one lightly to play second fiddle to any member of her own family. "I hear," she said, pitching her voice upon an almost perilous note of fashion--there was even a suspicion of a drawl which brought an involuntary curl to Melia's lip--"that young Nixey, the architect, has been recommended for the M.C."