She was triumph incarnate.
"And you never said a word!" This from Vivian.
"Not a word. Saved lots of trouble. Take care of me indeed! Laura needn't think I'm dependent on her yet!"
Vivian's heart rather yearned over her mother, thus doubly bereft.
"The truth is," her grandmother went on, "Samuel wants to go to Florida the worst way; I heard 'em talking about it! He wasn't willing to go alone—not he! Wants somebody to hear him cough, I say! And Laura couldn't go—'Mother was so dependent'—Huh!"
Vivian began to smile. She knew this had been talked over, and given up on that account. She herself could have been easily disposed of, but Mrs. Lane chose to think her mother a lifelong charge.
"Act as if I was ninety!" the old lady burst forth again. "I'll show 'em!"
"I think you're dead right, Mrs. Pettigrew," said Dr. Bellair. "Sixty isn't anything. You ought to have twenty years of enjoyable life yet, before they call you 'old'—maybe more."
Mrs. Pettigrew cocked an eye at her. "My grandmother lived to be a hundred and four," said she, "and kept on working up to the last year. I don't know about enjoyin' life, but she was useful for pretty near a solid century. After she broke her hip the last time she sat still and sewed and knitted. After her eyes gave out she took to hooking rugs."
"I hope it will be forty years, Mrs. Pettigrew," said Sue, "and I'm real glad you're coming. It'll make it more like home."