"Freddy dear, you know I have to stay here on account of Morty? Not that I'd do more for him than for you—I love you both just the same! But I couldn't take him up on the Hill."
"'Course you couldn't! Mother, for the Lord's sake, don't listen to Grandmother! She's one of the type that keeps the world back."
"She doesn't like change, that's all," Mrs. Payton explained. She came in and sat down at the table.
"Yes; she doesn't like change," Fred agreed. "If Nature had listened to Grandmother we'd all be protoplasm still. Probably the grandmother of the first worm that sprouted legs, kicked. No, she couldn't kick," Fred said, chuckling, "because she didn't have the legs she despised; she just said, 'It isn't done!'"
Mrs. Payton looked perfectly blank.
"I'm going to use that idea in my paper," Fred said, with satisfaction.
"Do you think Howard Maitland likes you to write papers, dear?"
"Likes me to? Why shouldn't he? It wouldn't make a bit of difference to me whether he did or not, but as he has ordinary garden sense, I am sure he doesn't dislike it."
"Men," Mrs. Payton said, timidly, "don't like clever women."