Maj.: Your childless hearth and all that, you know. No little pattering feet.
Mrs. P.-P.: Major! How dare you? I’ve got my little girl, I suppose you know. Her feet can patter as well as other children’s.
Maj.: Only one pair of feet.
Mrs. P.-P.: Certainly. My child isn’t a centipede. Considering the way they move us about in those horrid jungle stations, without a decent bungalow to set one’s foot in, I consider I’ve got a hearthless child, rather than a childless hearth. Thank you for your sympathy all the same. I dare say it was well meant. Impertinence often is.
Em.: Dear Mrs. Paly-Paget, we were only feeling sorry for your sweet little girl when she grows older, you know. No little brothers and sisters to play with.
Mrs. P.-P.: Mrs. Carewe, this conversation strikes me as being indelicate, to say the least of it. I’ve only been married two and a
half years, and my family is naturally a small one.
Maj.: Isn’t it rather an exaggeration to talk of one little female child as a family? A family suggests numbers.
Mrs. P.-P.: Really, Major, you language is extraordinary. I dare say I’ve only got a little female child, as you call it, at present—
Maj.: Oh, it won’t change into a boy later on, if that’s what you’re counting on. Take our word for it; we’ve had so much more experience in these affairs than you have. Once a female, always a female. Nature is not infallible, but she always abides by her mistakes.