“How old was she, papa?” asked Connie.
“She was over ninety, my dear; but she had forgotten how much herself, and her daughter could not be sure about it. She was a peculiar old lady, you know. She once reproved me for inadvertently putting my hat on the tablecloth. ‘Mr. Shafton,’ she said, ‘was one of the old school; he would never have done that. I don’t know what the world is coming to.’”
My two girls laughed at the idea of their papa being reproved for bad manners.
“What did you say, papa?” they asked.
“I begged her pardon, and lifted it instantly. ‘O, it’s all right now, my dear,’ she said, ‘when you’ve taken it up again. But I like good manners, though I live in a cottage now.’”
“Had she seen better days, then?” asked Wynnie.
“She was a farmer’s daughter, and a farmer’s widow. I suppose the chief difference in her mode of life was that she lived in a cottage instead of a good-sized farmhouse.”
“But what is the story you have to tell us?”
“I’m coming to that when you have done with your questions.”
“We have done, papa.”