“Tell about it, do,” begged the guest.
“Well, he came to see how Lady was growing up—he's a sort of species of relative—and he sat in your chair, colonel, and talked the most amazing Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass voice. And when Hannah asked Lady what her orders were for the grocer, he gave me a terrible look and rumbled out: 'I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that Jennie has burst her bounds!'
“It sounded horribly indecorous—I expected to see her in fragments on the floor—and I fairly gasped.”
“Gasped, mother? You laughed in his face!”
“Did I, dearest? It is possible.” Mrs. Leroy admitted. “And when I looked vague he explained, 'I mean that you seem to have relinquished the reins very early, Cousin Alice!'
“'Relinquished? Relinquished?' said I. 'Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I never held 'em!'”
“He only meant, mother dear, that—”
“Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to me very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old child, she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds.”
“Disgusting beast!” the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing himself of one of Hannah's beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane's white fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea.
How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at his table, moving so stately about his big empty house, filling it with pretty, useless woman's things, lighting every corner with that last touch of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to add to his lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely. He envied Dick this sister of his.