“How was that?” she asked.
“’Twas grand,” I said. “The Queen couldn’t have done it more to the manner born.”
My sister accepted my compliments complaisantly, as one who should say, “’Tis no more than my deserts.”
“How firm you were,” I said, admiringly.
“Wasn’t I, though?”
“How humble she was.”
“Wasn’t she?”
“You were quite as disagreeable and determined as a real Englishwoman would have been.”
“So I was.”
A pause full of intense admiration on my part. Then she said, “You couldn’t have done it.”