"You might as well try to cultivate a mustache," Mrs. Creswick rather brutally rejoined. "If it's there, it's there, but if it isn't one prays in vain."
"I used to think Hermione would do something," continued Miss Townly, finishing her second cup of tea with thirsty languor.
"Something important, great, something that would make her famous, but of course now"—she paused—"now it's too late," she concluded. "Marriage destroys, not creates talent. Some celebrated man—I forget which—has said something like that."
"Perhaps he'd destroyed his wife's. I think Hermione might be a great mother."
Miss Townly blushed faintly. She did nearly everything faintly. That was partly why she admired Hermione.
"And a great mother is rare," continued Mrs. Creswick. "Good mothers are, thank God, quite common even in London, whatever those foolish people who rail at the society they can't get into may say. But great mothers are seldom met with. I don't know one."
"What do you mean by a great mother?" inquired Miss Townly.
"A mother who makes seeds grow. Hermione has a genius for friendship and a special gift for inspiring others. If she ever has a child, I can imagine that she will make of that child something wonderful."
"Do you mean an infant prodigy?" asked Miss Townly, innocently.