“It is not everybody that is so fortunate,” Mrs Ogilvy said. None of the audience gave her the least assistance. They were fascinated by the confidence of the stranger, her pleasure in her own good fortune, and her freedom from any of that shyness which silenced themselves.
“Fortunate is really too little to say. Fancy, all my girls have made love-matches, and my sons-in-law adore their wives—and me. Now, I think that is a triumph. They are all fond of me. Don’t you think it is a triumph? If ever I feel inclined to boast, it is of that.”
“You are perhaps one of those,” said Mrs Ogilvy, somewhat grimly, “that, as we say in this country, a’body likes,—which is always a compliment—in one way.”
“That ah-body likes,” cried Mrs Ainslie with out-stretched hands, and an imitation which had a very irritating effect on the listeners. “Thank you a hundred times. It is a very pretty compliment, I think.”
“That awbody likes,” repeated Mrs Ogilvy, putting the vowel to rights. “We do not always mean it in just such a favourable sense.”
“It means a person that makes herself agreeable—with no real meaning in it,” said one.
“It means just a whillie-wha,” said another.
“It means a person, as they say, with a face like a fiddle, and no sincerity behind.”
Mrs Ainslie put up her hands again. “Oh, how am I to understand so much Scotch? I must ask Mr Logan,” she said.
And then again there was a pause. She dared to mention him! in the face of all those ladies banded together for his defence.