"Pass this coffee to Cally, son."
"Bob Dunn sent 'em, Cally, down at the bookstore," said Looloo, sweetly.
"And he wrote Hen a love-letter Thanksgiving beginning, 'Darling
Miss Cooney.'"
"That so?" said Tee Wee, who was just home from the University for
Christmas and not up on all the news yet. "How'd he sign it--'Your
loving Mr. Dunn'?"
"'Ave some werry nice 'am, Cally?"
"Yes--thank you. But do go on and tell me about Mr. Dunn. Does Hen like
him?"
"No, but she loves violets," said Tee Wee. "Made me sit up half of last
night, fanning 'em for her."
"Loo, pass Charles's plate, daughter."
Carlisle surveyed the noisy table as from some lofty peak. She knew
that the Cooney habit of monopolizing all conversation, and dashing
straight through every topic, was only their poor-but-proud way of
showing off: sometimes it was a little irritating, but to-night only
rather fatiguing to the ear-drums. The children came two years apart, as
regular as some kind of biannual publication; Looloo, seventeen, being
the youngest, and also the best-looking and the most popular in the
family. But then all the Cooneys were good-looking, including the Major,
and all were popular in the family. In fact, they were more like a
house-party than a family at all: and in some ways they rather resembled
a queer little secret fraternity, enjoying strange delights and
responding with shrieks to unintelligible catchwords.
To-night the talk was more than usually disjointed, owing to the
regrettable absence of Hortense. There was constant jumping up, infinite
"passing." Mr. Tee Wee, manipulating the water-pitcher from the
side-table, complained aside to his mother at the universal thirst.
Chas, it seemed, had charge of the heating-up of the later crops of
biscuits: he kept springing off to the kitchen, now and then returning
with a heaping platter of what he called his little brown beauties.
In the midst of the confusion, Hen strode in, looking somewhat defiant,
and instantly drew the fires of all.
"How're the little patients, Hen? Number 9 looked pretty sick to me
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