"I don't know you!"
"You have a poor memory," laughed Mr. Clarke. "Now, I knew you at once as Mrs. Jenks, who nursed my wife when our daughter Roma was born. My name is Edmund Clarke. We used to live in Brookline. I sold my property there and moved away when Roma was an infant."
"I never heard of Brookline before, nor you, either!" snapped granny.
"Your memory is bad, as I said before, but you won't deny that your name is Jenks?" Mr. Clarke returned.
As the whole town knew her by that name, she felt that denial was useless, but she preserved a stubborn silence, and he continued:
"I came to ask you, granny, how you came by such a beautiful granddaughter."
"Humph! The same way as other people come by grandchildren, I s'pose. My daughter ran away to be an actress, and came back in a year without a wedding ring, and left her baby on my hands, while she disappeared again forever," returned granny, with an air of such apparent truthfulness that he was staggered.
He was silent a moment, then returned to the charge.
"How old is Liane?"