Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/116



OW, Jane Bennett, you ain't no call to fash yourself about William," said Old Lady Pratt, looking over her steel bowed spectacles at her daughter. "William's got too good a head-piece to think jest as other folks do about every thing, and you might as well give up, fust as last, expectin' him to be cut and dried in his opinions."

Mrs. Henry Bennett, of Westville, who was paying her mother a visit, never let conversation languish for lack of a retort.

"I don't know 's William's got any better right to his opinions than other folks have to theirs. And it's my opinion that he's disgracing the family with his wrong-headed talk."

Old Lady Pratt bridled. "Ef the family never gits no wuss disgraced than that, I guess there wont be no great cause for blushin'."

"Well, Mother," snapped Jane. "You always did take William's part. I don't know 's we'd ought to expect you to change in your old age!"

Old Lady Pratt was not fond of bickerings, so she let this thrust pass without rebuke.