'Lord! Miss Venetia, you know very well your mamma always tells you that all those books you read are a pack of stories,' observed Mistress Pauncefort, with an air of triumphant art.
'There never were such persons, perhaps,' said Venetia, 'but it is not true that there never were such things as papas and husbands, for all people have papas; you must have had a papa, Mistress Pauncefort?'
'To be sure I had,' said Mistress Pauncefort, bridling up.
'And a mamma too?' said Venetia.
'As honest a woman as ever lived,' said Mistress Pauncefort.
'Then if I have no papa, mamma must be a wife that has lost her husband, and that, mamma told me at dinner yesterday, was a widow.'
'Was the like ever seen!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'And what then, Miss Venetia?'
'It seems to me so odd that only two people should live here, and both be widows,' said Venetia, 'and both have a little child; the only difference is, that one is a little boy, and I am a little girl.'
'When ladies lose their husbands, they do not like to have their names mentioned,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'and so you must never talk of your papa to my lady, and that is the truth.'
'I will not now,' said Venetia.