Miriam watched Miss Haddie’s thin fingers feeling for the pins in her black toque. “Of course not,” she thought, looking at the unveiled shrivelled cheek.... “thirty-five years of being a lady.”
“Oh well,” she sighed fiercely.
“What is it ye mean, my dear?”
—‘couldn’t make head or tail of a thing the old dodderer said’—no ‘old boy,’ no—these phrases would not do for Miss Haddie.
“I couldn’t agree with anything he said.”
Miss Haddie sat down on the edge of the little white bed burying her face in her hands and smoothing them up and down with a wiping movement.
“One can always criticise a sermon,” she said reproachfully.
“Well, why not?”
“I mean to say ye can,” said Miss Haddie from behind her fingers, “but, but ye shouldn’t.”
“You can’t help it.”