Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/205

 Mrs. Leroy admitted. “And when I looked vague he explained, ‘I mean that you seem to have relinquished the reins very early, Cousin Alice!’

“‘Relinquished? Relinquished?’ said I. ‘Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I never held ’em!’”

“He only meant, mother dear, that—”

“Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to me very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old child, she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds.”

“Disgusting beast!” the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing himself of one of Hannah’s beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane’s white fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea.

How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at his table, moving