Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/204



“Now, mother dearest, you always make him out worse—”

“Worse, my darling? Worse is a word that couldn’t be applied to that man. Worse is comparative. Positive he certainly was, superlative is mild, but comparative—never!”

“Tell about it, do,” begged the guest.

“Well, he came to see how Lady was growing up—he’s a sort of species of relative—and he sat in your chair, colonel, and talked the most amazing Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass voice. And when Hannah asked Lady what her orders were for the grocer, he gave me a terrible look and rumbled out: ‘I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that Jennie has burst her bounds!’

“It sounded horribly indecorous—I expected to see her in fragments on the floor—and I fairly gasped.”

“Gasped, mother? You laughed in his face!”

“Did I, dearest? It is possible,”