Before anybody else was allowed to begin, Mrs Stumfold rose from her chair with a large and completely filled bowl of tea, with a plate also laden with buttered toast, and with her own hands and on her own legs carried these delicacies round to her papa. On such an occasion as this no servant, no friend, no Mr Startup, was allowed to interfere with her filial piety.
“She does it always,” said an admiring lady in an audible whisper from the other side of Miss Baker. “She does it always.”
The admiring lady was the wife of a retired coachbuilder, who was painfully anxious to make her way into good evangelical society at Littlebath.
“Perhaps you will put in the sugar for yourself,” said Mrs Stumfold to Miss Mackenzie as soon as she returned. On this occasion Miss Mackenzie received her cup
