Page:The principal girl (IA principalgirl00snai).pdf/93

 "A good and honorable and upright man I'm sure, Mr. Shelmerdine, although his politics are all wrong to my mind. You see, we artists, even the oldest of us, live for ideas, and these unfortunate Vandeleurites—but we won't talk politics, although it was I who bought Mr. Vandeleur his first bells and coral. At that time nobody except his mother and myself, and possibly his nurse foresaw that he was the future Prime Minister of England. Polly, my dear, the tea."

"You boastful old Granny," said Mary. "And I don't think Mr. Shelmerdine is a bit impressed."

"But I am—awfully," said Mr. Shelmerdine gallantly, handing the Bohea.

And he came within an ace of dropping the cup on to the hearthrug, because Miss Mary chose at that fateful moment to twitch her adorable left eyelid so artfully that the young man had to whisk away his countenance to keep from laughing in the face of Grandmamma.

"Mr. Shelmerdine, tell me, have you seen my granddaughter play at the Lane?"

Yes, Mr. Shelmerdine had, and if he might say so, admired her playing awfully.

"I am sorry to hear you say that," said Grandmamma. "To my mind she displays a strange lack of ambition. We are an old theatrical family, Mr. Shelmerdine. When I was her age I was playing Lady Macbeth to John Peter Kendall."