The Major, who is half your age"-- I had come early, as was my custom, to pay my respects to the dear woman--"is no better.

You are both of you getting into a rut.

What you want is some young blood pumped into your shrivelled veins.

I am going to hunt up every girl I know and all the boys, including that young Breen you are so wild over, and then I'll send for dear Ruth MacFarlane, who has just come North with her father to live, and who doesn't know a soul, and nobody over twenty-five is to be admitted.

So if you and the Major want to come to Ruth's tea--Ruth's, remember; not yours or the Major's, or mine--you will either have to pass the cake or take the gentlemen's hats.