The slice exhibited an eruption of plums and sweetmeats, overlaid by a perspiration of butter.

It has been said that Sir Patrick had reached the age of seventy--it is, therefore, needless to add that he politely declined to commit an unprovoked outrage on his own stomach.
"MY cake!" persisted Lady Lundie, elevating the horrible composition on a fork.

"Won't that tempt you ?" Sir Patrick saw his way to slipping out of the room under cover of a compliment to his sister-in-law.

He summoned his courtly smile, and laid his hand on his heart.
"A fallible mortal," he said, "is met by a temptation which he can not possibly resist.

If he is a wise mortal, also, what does he do ?" "He eats some of My cake," said the prosaic Lady Lundie.
"No!" said Sir Patrick, with a look of unutterable devotion directed at his sister-in-law.
"He flies temptation, dear lady--as I do now." He bowed, and escaped, unsuspected, from the room.
Lady Lundie cast down her eyes, with an expression of virtuous indulgence for human frailty, and divided Sir Patrick's compliment modestly between herself and her cake.
Well aware that his own departure from the table would be followed in a few minutes by the rising of the lady of the house, Sir Patrick hurried to the library as fast as his lame foot would let him.