“Don’t call me ‘Ma,’” snapped the goaded Mrs. Berthelin. “And this is the girl?” She looked Mayme up and down. Mayme did the same by her and did it better.
“I could give you a lorny-yette and beat you at the frozen-stare trick,” said the irrepressible Mayme at the conclusion of the duel which ended in her favor.
The Little Red Doctor gurgled. I saw the Bonnie Lassie’s eyelids quiver, but her face was cold and impassive as she turned to the visitor.
“Mrs. Berthelin,” said she, “you have made some very damaging statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney’s character. What proof have you?”
“Why, he wants to marry her!” almost yelled the mother. “She’s trapped him.”
“That’s another lie,” said Mayme.
“He told me himself that he was going to marry you.”
“Did he? Then he’s wrong. I wouldn’t marry him with a brass ring,” asserted Mayme.
“You wouldn’t mar—You wouldn’t what?” demanded the mother, outraged and incredulous.
“You heard me. He knows it, too. I don’t like the family—what I’ve seen of them,” observed Mayme judicially. “Besides, he’s yellow.”