The two of them learnt the new game rapidly and well; they experimented abroad, they experimented at home. At Chiselhurst, with the aid of a new, very costly, but highly instructive cook, they tried over everything they heard of that roused their curiosity and had any reputation for difficulty, from asparagus to plover’s eggs. They afterwards got a gardener who could wait at table—and he brought the soil home to one. Then there came a butler.
I remember my aunt’s first dinner-gown very brightly, and how she stood before the fire in the drawing-room confessing once unsuspected pretty arms with all the courage she possessed, and looking over her shoulder at herself in a mirror.
“A ham,” she remarked reflectively, “must feel like this. Just a necklace.”...
I attempted, I think, some common
