Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/151

 like boys. Grandmother Endicott, too, she was so cold and distant toward me; you see, she hated poor mother so. When Cousin Frank's will was read she was very, very angry. I don't know whether I told you that she said quite publicly that it was absurd for a woman of my age to be so crazy for travelling. I thought that rather unkind, for she's been so much herself. But then, she's so old, perhaps she's not quite responsible. She's eighty-four, you know."

"Ah," said M. Laroche, with admiration, "she is verry old, verry old indeed, your grandmozzer!"

He was as charmingly attentive, as gallantly interested, as if he had not heard it all before a hundred times over. Every movement of his expressive, whimsical face meant courteous regard; every attitude of his figure, a little bent now, in clothes a little shabby, but so exquisitely mended and brushed and polished that the necessity for such artistic care seemed