This supper is not a tribute to you as a bride,
but as a Bostonian."
It was a cheap kind of raillery, to be sure, but it served. It kindled
the local pride of Isabel to self-defense, and in the distraction of the
effort she forgot her fears; she returned with renewed appetite to the
supper, and in its excellence they both let fall their dispute,--which
ended, of course, in Basil's abject confession that Boston was the best
place in the world, and nothing but banishment could make him live
elsewhere,--and gave themselves up, as usual, to the delight of being
just what and where they were. At last, the natural course brought them
to the strawberries, and when the fifth waiter approached from the corner
of the table at which he stood, to place the vase near them, he did not
retire at once, but presently asked if they were from the West.
Isabel smiled, and Basil answered that they were from the East.
He faltered at this, as if doubtful of the result if he went further, but
took heart, then, and asked, "Don't you think this is a pretty nice
hotel"--hastily adding as a concession of the probable existence of much
finer things at the East--"for a small hotel?"
They imagined this waiter as new to his station in life, as perhaps just
risen to it from some country tavern, and unable to repress his
exultation in what seemed their sympathetic presence.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109