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The boys stood crowding against the table, looking at aunt undoing her parcels. In one were sweet biscuits, in another brandy-balls, peppermints, pear-drops and toffy. All this was carefully divided into little stacks and each child was given his share, with the strict injunction not to eat any before noon.
Presently, however, as though suddenly remembering that her happiness was not utterly complete, she went to a drawer, took out a packet of pear-drops, and put one in her mouth. The sun, near to setting, had found its way through a hole in the blind, and touched her neck. She turned as though she had received a kiss, and, raising a corner of the blind, peered out.
Laughter twinkled all over his face, and he began to feel extremely young. "Well, really, Miss Vancourt, " he began. "There, I know what you are going to say!" exclaimed Maryllia "You are going to tell me that it would never do for a clergyman to be seen munching pear-drops in his own parish. I understand! But clergymen do ever so much. worse than that sometimes. They do, really!
Miss Todd, who had put up the cart at the Queen's Hotel, met them as they were emerging from the confectioner's, sucking pear-drops and toffee. "You're lucky, for sweets are scarce," she commented. "Thanks very much I won't have one just now. Where are the others? Can you find them? I'm going to take you all up the church tower to get a bird's-eye view of the town.
"Certainly, if you wish it," he answered with a slight touch of embarrassment; "I thought perhaps " "You thought perhaps, what?" laughed Maryllia, glancing up at him archly "That I was going to make you eat pear-drops against your will? Not I! I wouldn't be so rude. But I really thought I ought to buy something from Mrs. Tapple, she was so worried, poor old dear! -till you came in.
She picked herself up at once, however, and limped away, not heeding the hurt much, so delightful was it to be out alone without her hat. By the time she got to Mary Lynch's she was Jane Nettles going on an errand, an assumption which enabled her to enter the shop at her ease. "Good-day," she began. "Give me a ha'porth of pear-drops, and a ha'porth of raspberry-drops, Mary Lynch, please.
Two ounces of pear-drops for me, Mrs. Tapple, please! and one of brandy balls!" Mrs. Tapple bustled out of her 'Gove'nment' office, and came to the grocery counter to dispense these dainties. "They stick to the jar so," said Maryllia, watching her thoughtfully; "They always did. I remember, as a child, seeing a man put his finger in to detach them. Don't put your finger in, Mrs.
But now, when shall we be married? 'Not for years and years, said Hazel, pleased at the dismay on his face, and enjoying her new power. Then she reflected on the many untried delights of the new life. 'Leastways, not for days an' days, she amended. 'Will you gi' me pear-drops every day? 'Pear-drops! My dear Hazel, you must think of better things than pear-drops!
"Or pear-drops," continued Maryllia, glancing critically at the various jars of 'sweeties, "I see the real old-fashioned pink ones up there, lumpy at one end and tapering at the other. Do you like them? Or brandy balls? I think the pear-drops carry one back to the age of ten most quickly! But which do you prefer?" Walden tried to look serious, but could not succeed.
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