"I hate that grandfather and Uncle Lancelot affair! Don't you think it's a pity I couldn't have had a little say-so in that business?"
"Yes—no—I don't know—ouch, my knee!" she snapped. "What a chatterbox you are, Grace! I've got rheumatism!"
"But I've got 'hereditary tendencies,'" I persisted, "and chloroform liniment won't do any good with my ailment. I wish I need never hear my family history mentioned again."
"Then, you shouldn't have chosen so notable a lineage," she exclaimed viciously. "Your Grandfather Moore, as you know, was a famous divine—"
"I know—and Uncle Lancelot Christie was an equally famous infernal," I said, for the sake of varying the story a little. I was so tired of it.
She stared, arrested in her recital.
"What?"
"Well, if you call a minister a divine, why shouldn't you call a gambler an infernal?"
"Just after the Civil War," she kept on, with the briefest pause left to show that she ignored my interruption, "your grandfather did all in his power—although he was no kin to me, I give him credit for that—he did all in his power to re-establish peace between the states by preaching and praying across the border."
"And Uncle Lancelot accomplished the feat in half the time by flirting and marrying," I reminded her.