None of them had forgotten, and they thought no one else
had, how Bessie had once come to disgrace by bursting out crying over
the impossibility of finishing some terrible rice-bordered greenish
yellow stuff that burnt her mouth beyond bearing, and which Ida
called curry, and said people in the East Indies liked. However,
that was when Bessie had been a very little girl; and she still
continued adventurous, saying, "Yes, if you please," to cutlets set
round in a wreath, with all their bones sticking up, and covered with
a reddish incrustation that Susan and Annie thought so unnatural,
that they preferred the boiled chicken that at least they could
understand, though it had funny-hooking accompaniments in the sauce.
And Hal's report of some savoury jelly which he had once encountered
would have deterred them from the pink transparency in the shape of a
shell, if they had not seen Bessie getting on very well with it, Miss
Fosbrook happily perceiving and cutting short Annie's intended
inquiry whether it were nice. To her great relief, this was the only
want of manners betrayed by her little savages, and she was able to
keep her attention tolerably free from them, so as to look at the
pictures on the walls, observe the two boys, Hal's friends, and talk
to Mrs.
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