It's so much more work to go to the Tower nowadays than it used to be!) We had intended to take a sail to Richmond on a penny steamboat, but it was drizzling, so we had a cosy fire instead, slipped into our tea-gowns, and ordered tea and thin bread-and-butter, a basket of strawberries with their frills on, and a jug of Devonshire cream.
Willie Beresford asked if he might stay; otherwise, he said, he should have to sit at a cold marble table on the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly, and take his tea in bachelor solitude.
"Yes," I said severely, "we will allow you to stay; though, as you are coming to dinner, I should think you would have to go away some time, if only in order that you might get ready to come back.

You've been here since breakfast-time." "I know," he answered calmly, "and my only error in judgment was that I didn't take an earlier breakfast, in order to begin my day here sooner.
One has to snatch a moment when he can, nowadays; for these rooms are so infested with British swells that a base-born American stands very little chance!" Now I should like to know if Willie Beresford is in love with Francesca.
What shall I do--that is what shall we do--if he is, when she is in love with somebody else?
To be sure, she may want one lover for foreign and another for domestic service.

He is too old for her, but that is always the way.

When Alcides, having gone through all the fatigues of life, took a bride in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose Hebe.
I wonder why so many people call him 'Willie' Beresford, at his age.
Perhaps it is because his mother sets the example; but from her lips it does not seem amiss.

I suppose when she looks at him she recalls the past, and is ever seeing the little child in the strong man, mother fashion.