"She's made a wonnerful change on the passon. An' it was all my own idea," Edward John declared with satisfaction, as he scooped up a mouthful of green peas with his knife.
"Her mother—poor thing—died o' consumption," Mrs. Charles remarked, and sighed as though she were placing a wreath on Eunice's coffin.
"But she's the very picture of health, mother," Henry protested.
"Still, there's consumption in the family," she murmured.
"Nothing to do with her case. Doctors are now giving up the idea that the disease is hereditary," Henry said, with unnecessary emphasis, as it seemed to Edward John.
"But doctors don't know everythink, 'Enry, my boy," his father remarked.
"And neither do mothers."
Whereat one of them sighed again.
The meal went on in silence for a while, and the pudding was at vanishing point when Henry broke into talk again.
"By the way, Dora, did I ever tell you that the Wintons have come to Laysford? You remember them? My old friends at Wheelton."