"Well," said Mrs. Bates, thoughtfully, "it's a way; but there are better ones, no doubt. Come, cut that lecture altogether. He could pick up more in half an hour with me there at his elbow than he could learn in half a dozen courses of lectures, however extended they were."
"And have you act as you acted at Rosy's afternoon? You'd paralyze us both." Jane blushed at her "both."
"Oh, that's only my little way," returned Mrs. Bates, laughing. "You'd both understand." Jane blushed again. "A way," she repeated; "but there are better ones, no doubt." And she laughed once more.
X
Bingham half folded the newspaper, and laid it again on Marshall's desk. Then he settled his large, long figure back in Marshall's other chair, and placed a broad finger or two upon each of its curved and varnished arms.
"Yes," he observed, slowly, with a smile in the direction of the old man, "the younger generation are holding up their end."
"So it seems," said Marshall, in return, while he scanned the other's face closely to see what his precise meaning might be. Bingham's remark had been uttered with an even intonation; it was difficult to determine whether, after all, he had emphasized "younger" more than "generation," or "their" more than "end," or, indeed, whether he had given an undue stress to either.
"Yes," the old man repeated. He made another reference to the newspaper.
"Yes; that is my child."
He fixed an eye, half fascinated, half protesting, upon a large cut which was set to fill the width of two columns. It was a portrait of Rosy—of "Miss Rosamund Marshall," as it read—with a line or two more, vaguely biographical in character, in italics, beneath. It was engraved with more than the usual care, and printed with more than the usual success.
This was the first time that any woman of his family had ever been exposed in the public prints. "And here are five or six lines telling how she was dressed. Is that right, Bingham?"