"Ah, a Crichton in petticoats. Any others?"
"Those are all the languages I can speak, uncle."
"And enough, too, Nansie."
"Yes, uncle."
"I must do your father the justice to say that he has furnished you well. But I suppose you can't make a pudding?"
"Yes, I can, uncle."
"Better and better. I thought I was about to learn something. And, now, when your father died he did not leave a fortune behind him?"
"He died poor."
"But you were not alone and unprotected. You had a husband by your side. It occurs to me as strange that so soon before my brother's death he should have written to me in anxiety about you, and should have asked me to give you a home here in London; and you with a husband all the time!"
"My father did not know I was married."