"Perfectly. Her tarts no one could forget."
"Katharine is indebted to me for Marches," continued Sylvia. "I relinquished her to Katharine upon the occasion of her marriage, ten years ago; for she was totally inexperienced, you know—only seventeen."
"Then she is now twenty-seven."
"I should not have mentioned that," said Miss Pitcher, instinctively. "It was an inadvertence. Could you oblige me by forgetting it?"
"With the greatest ease. She is, then, sensitive about her age?"
"Not in the least. Why should she be? Certainly no one would ever dream of calling twenty-seven old!" (Miss Pitcher paused with dignity.) "You think her beautiful, of course?" she added.
"She is a fine-looking woman."
"Oh, John, that is what they always say of women who weigh two hundred! And Katharine is very slender."
Ford laughed. "I supposed the fact that Mrs. Winthrop was handsome went without the saying."
"It goes," said Sylvia, impressively, "but not without the saying; I assure you, by no means without the saying. It has been said this summer many times."