"Has the young gentleman?"—Mrs. Wilson snorted audibly—"Well,
has this young haberdasher made any sort of definite declaration to Lætitia?"
"I understand not. But it's impossible not to see."
"Would it not be a little premature for me to say anything to him?"
"Have I asked you to do so?"
"I am a little uncertain what it is you have asked me to do."
Mrs. Wilson contrived, by pantomime before she spoke, to express her perfect patience under extremest trial, inflicted on her by an impudent suggestion that she hadn't made her position clear. She would, however, state her case once more with incisive distinctness. To that end she separated her syllables, and accented selections from them, even as a resolute hammer accents the head of a nail.
"Have I not told you distinctly"—the middle syllable of this word was a sample nailhead—"a thousand times that what I wish you to do—however much you may shirk doing it—is to speak to Lætitia—to remonstrate with her about the encouragement she is giving to this young man, and to point out to her that a girl in her position—in short, the duties of a girl in her position?" Mrs. Wilson's come-down at this point was an example of a solemn warning to the elocutionist who breaks out of bounds. She was obliged to fall back arbitrarily on her key-note in the middle of the performance. "Have I said this to you, Mr. Wilson, or have I not?"
"Speaking from memory I should say not. Yes—certainly not. But I can raise no reasonable objection to speaking to Lætitia, provided I am at liberty to say what I like. I understand that to be part of the bargain."
"If you mean," says the lady, whose temper had not been improved by the first part of the speech; "if you mean that you consider yourself at liberty to encourage a rebellious daughter against her mother, I know too well from old experience that that is the case. But I trust that for once your right feeling will show you that it is your plain duty to tell her that the course she is pursuing can only lead to the loss of her position in society, and probably to poverty and unhappiness."