"That's Mrs. Picture," said Gwen, interested. But she did not speak loud enough to invite correction of her pronunciation of the name, and Sister Nora merely said:—"That's her!" and nodded. Dolly at once launched into a vague narrative of a misadventure that had befallen her putative offspring, the doll that Sister Nora had given her last year. Struvvel Peter had met with an accident, his shock head having got in a candle-flame in Mrs. Picture's room upstairs, so that he was quite smooth before he could be rescued. The interest of this superseded other matter.
"Davy he's a great favourite with the ladies," said Uncle Mo, as Struvvel Peter subsided. "He ain't partic'lar to any age. Likes 'em a bit elderly, if anythin', I should say." He added, merely to generalise the conversation, and make talk:—"Now this here old lady in the country she's maybe ten years younger than our Mrs. Prichard, but she's what you might call getting on in years."
"Prichard," said Gwen, for Sister Nora's ear. "I thought it couldn't be Picture."
"Prichard, of course! How funny we didn't think of it—so obvious!"
"Very—when one knows! I think I like Picture best."
Aunt M'riar, not to be out of the conversation, took a formal exception to Uncle Mo's remark:—"The ladies they know how old Old Mrs. Marrable in the country is, without your telling of 'em, Mo."
"Right you are, M'riar! But they don't know nothing about old Mrs. Prichard." Uncle Mo had spoken at a guess of Mrs. Marrowbone's age, of which he knew nothing. It was a sort of emulation that had made him assess his old lady as the senior. He felt vulnerable, and changed the conversation. "That young Squire's taking his time, M'riar. Supposin' now I was just to sing out to him?"
But both ladies exclaimed against Dave being hurried away from his old lady. Besides, they wanted to know some more about her—what sort of classification hers would be, and so on. There were stumbling-blocks in this path. Better keep clear of classes—stick to generalities, and hope for lucky chances!
"What made Dave think the old souls so much alike, Mrs. Wardle?" said Sister Nora. "Children are generally so sharp to see differences."
"It was a kind of contradictiousness, ma'am, no better I do think, merely for to set one of 'em alongside the other, and look at." Aunt M'riar did not really mean contradictiousness, and can hardly have meant contradistinction, as that word was not in her vocabulary. We incline to look for its origin in the first six letters, which it enjoys in common with contrariwise and contrast. This, however, is Philology, and doesn't matter. Let Aunt M'riar go on.