LAURA (assertively). She can hear me. (To prove it, she raises her voice defiantly.) Can't you, Mother?
MRS. R. (the voice perhaps reminding her). Jane, dear, I wonder what's become of Laura, little Laura: she was always so naughty and difficult to manage, so different from Martha—and the rest.
LAURA. Lor', Julia! Is it as bad as that? Mother, 'little Laura' is here, sitting in front of you. Don't you know me?
MRS. R. Do you remember, Jane, one day when we'd all started for a walk, Laura had forgotten to bring her gloves, and I sent her back for them? And on the way she met little Dorothy Jones, and she took her gloves off her, and came back with them just as if they were her own.
LAURA. What a good memory you have, Mother! I remember it too. She was an odious little thing, that Dorothy—always so whiney-piney.
JULIA. More tea, Laura?
(Laura pushes her cup at her without remark, for she has been kept waiting; then, in loud tones, to suit the one whom she presumes to be rather deaf:)
LAURA. Mother! Where are you living now?
MRS. R. I'm living, my dear.
LAURA. I said 'where?'