“Sit down, Lydia, for mercy’s sake, and cool off. Yes; we know all about her; she’s a patient of Marius’. Have some lemonade! Isn’t it fearful! And Marius keeps reading improving books! It makes me so much hotter! She’s English, you know.”
Dr. Melton looked up from his book to remark, with his usual judicial moderation, “I could strangle that old harridan with joy. She has been one of the most pernicious influences the women of this town have ever had.”
“Flora Burgess’ mother? Why, I never heard of her in the world until the other day.”
“You can’t smell sewer gas,” said the doctor briefly.
Mrs. Sandworth laughed. “Marius almost killed himself last winter to pull her through pneumonia. He worked over her night and day. Oh, Marius is a great deal better than he talks—strangle—!”
“I’m a fool, if that’s what you mean,” said the doctor.
“What is the matter with Flora Burgess’ mother?” asked Lydia.
“She’s been a plague spot in this town for years—that lower-middle-class old Briton, with her beastly ideas of caste—ever since she began sending out her daughter to preach her damnable gospel to defenseless Endbury homes.”
“Marius—my dear!” chided Mrs. Sandworth—“The Gospel—damnable! You forget yourself!”
The doctor did not laugh. “They’re the ones,” he went on, “who first started this idiotic idea of there being a social stigma attached to living in any but just such parts of town.”