"Is anything wrong?" asked her mother.
"Well, I don't know whether you would call it wrong or right. Mr. Philip Scott sends me back my MS., with his criticism of it. I agree with most of the things he says: my language is too incorrigibly noble, my quotations are very frequent——"
"But if they're good quotations," Mrs. Douglas interrupted.
"Oh, they're good quotations. 'It was the best butter,' as the poor March Hare said. But what he objects to most is the sweetness of it. He says, 'Put more acid into it.'"
"Into me, does he mean?"
"I suppose so. Mr. Scott evidently finds you insipid. We must change that at once. Tell me, now, about all the people you hated and who hated you."
Mrs. Douglas looked bewildered, and more than a little indignant. "Nonsense, Ann. I'm sure I'm very glad to hear you have made me sweet—anything else would have been most undutiful; and as for hating people, I never was any good at that. I couldn't keep up grudges, though I was sometimes very angry at people. I dare say it was a weakness in my nature. But I think, if Mr. Scott is to be allowed to criticise, I might be allowed to read my own Life."
"It's so dull," said Ann, looking discontentedly at the MS. "And you're not a dull woman, Mother! Rather a comic, really. See, read for yourself."
Ann plumped the packet on to her mother's lap and retired to the fender-stool with the Times; but she could hardly have done justice to the leaders, for her eyes often wandered from the printed page to the expressive face of her mother reading her own Life.
For half an hour Ann waited; then her patience gave out, and she leant forward and put her hand across the page.