So time sped on, and these two children grew more and more long-legged, more and more definite in character, and as they progressed towards what Mrs. Whittaker fondly believed to be originality and unconventionalism, so did her mother’s heart bound and yearn within her.
“I am amply satisfied with the result of our scheme of education,” she was wont to say. “No, it is not easy—it is much easier to bring up children in the conventional way. But the result—oh, my dear lady, the result, when you feel a thrill of pride that your children are different to others, is worth the sacrifice.”
“Now I wonder what,” said the lady in question in the bosom of her family, “did that foolish woman particularly have to sacrifice? The general feeling in the Park seems to be that the Whittakers are horrid children—disagreeable, ill-bred, sententious, and altogether ridiculous; too sharp in one way, too stupid for words in another. And yet she talks about sacrifice!”
“Oh, Maudie isn’t sharp—at least, not particularly so,” said her own girl, who, being a couple of years older than Maudie Whittaker, knew fairly well the lie of the land. “Julia’s sharp—a needle isn’t in it. It’s Julia who backs Maudie up in everything, and Julia is a horrid little beast whom everybody hates and loathes. She tried it on with me once when I was at school, but I soon put the young lady in her right place with a good setting down, and she never tried it on any more. They’d have been all right if they had been properly brought up, which they weren’t.”
“You think not?”
“Oh no, mother. You have no idea how intensely silly Mrs. Whittaker is.”
“Is she? I thought she was such a brilliant woman.”
“I believe she calls herself so; nobody else agrees with her.”
“Do you know what I heard about Mrs. Whittaker only yesterday?” said the mother, with a sudden gleam of remembrance. “She has gone in for public speaking. They say it’s too killing for words.”