'Yes; I think it must be that 'igh-class, fashionable school that's taught 'er to speak so of 'er parents, an' not respect any one,' agreed her mother in querulous accents.
'I didn't mean to speak disrespectfully to you, dear old mother,' said the girl with a kind of patronising affection.
'I don't know w'at you call it, then, callin' me an 'umbug,' objected Mrs Clay.
'I was in fun, and you know it is humbug your pretending to read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' persisted Sarah.
At the title, the youth in the armchair roused himself, and said in quite a different tone, 'Were you reading that, mater? Is it my copy?'
'Well, I can't say I'd really read it, not to understand it; but I saw it was one o' the books you were studyin', an' I thought I'd take a look at it just to know a little w'at you were studyin' w'en you got back to college,' said his mother apologetically.
'That's awfully nice of you, mater; but why didn't you ask me about it? I'd have told you anything you wanted to know about my work. That's such a frightfully dry book. I should grind it up for my trip,' replied her son.
'I don't know that I want to know about "trips;" but I feel I ought to try an' educate myself now you two are comin' on, so as not to disgrace you,' began his mother.
But her son, with an impatient movement—which, however, he immediately suppressed—interrupted her. 'Dear mater, what does it matter whether you are learned or not? For my part, I don't see what women want to be educated for at all.'
'Oh, you don't, don't you? You ought to have lived about the year one. You're several centuries behind the times, George!' exclaimed his sister indignantly.