Margaret turned and faced him. "Stay with Hannah. I want to have my mother to myself," she said.
"Well, that's a nice handful!" Mr. Garratt remarked, as she shut the door and turned the handle with a click.
"You should live in the same house with her," said Hannah, "then you'd know."
"She might have left it a little bit open, at any rate; then we should have heard her."
"Are you as anxious as all that?" asked Hannah, in a sarcastic voice.
"Well, you see, it makes it a bit lively."
"When I was at Petersfield the other day your mother asked me if I would see that the grass on your Aunt Amelia's grave was clipped. I brought in the small shears, and thought perhaps you might walk over and do it next time you came."
"Damn my Aunt Amelia's grave!" he said, between his teeth.
"Mr. Garratt, you are forgetting yourself!" she cried, in amazement.
"She's enough to make any one forget anything," he said, nodding towards the best parlor.