"I never thought you were such a fool, Edith," says Madam O'Connor, with the greatest sweetness.
"You may think as you will, Gertrude," responds Mrs. Fitzgerald, with her faded air of juvenility sadly lost in her agitation, and shaking her head nervously, as though afflicted with a sudden touch of palsy that accords dismally with her youthful attire. "But I shall cling to my own opinions. And I utterly disapprove of Mrs. Bohun."
"For me," says Bella, vindictively, "I believe her capable of anything. I can't bear those women who laugh at nothing, and powder themselves every half-hour."
"You shouldn't throw stones, Bella," says honest Madam O'Connor, now nearly at the end of her patience. "Your glass house will be shivered if you do. Before I took to censuring other people I'd look in a mirror, if I were you."
"I don't understand you," says Miss Fitzgerald, turning rather pale.
"That's because you won't look in a mirror. Why, there's enough powder on your right ear to whiten a Moor!"
"I never——" begins Bella, in a stricken tone; but Madam O'Connor stops her.
"Nonsense! sure I'm looking at it," she says.
This hanging evidence is not to be confuted. For a moment the fair Bella feels crushed; then she rallies nobly, and, after withering her terrified mother with a glance, sweeps from the room, followed at a respectful distance by Mrs. Fitzgerald, and quite closely by Madam, who declines to see she has given offence in any way.
As they go, Mrs. Fitzgerald keeps up a gentle twitter, in the hope of propitiating the wrathful goddess on before.