Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/313

 every inch a Lansdale," Miss Caroline found occasion to say; while I, thus provided with an excuse to look, remarked to myself that her inches, while not excessive, were unusually meritorious.

"Worse than that—she's a Jere Lansdale," was my response, though I tactfully left it unuttered for an "Indeed?" that seemed less emotional. I could voice my deeper conviction not more explicitly than by saying further to Miss Caroline, "Perhaps that explains why she has the effect of making her mother seem positively immature."

"My mother is positively immature," remarked the daughter, with the air of telling something she had found out long since.

"Then perhaps the other is the false effect," I ventured. "It is your mother's immaturity that makes you seem so—" I thought it kind to hesitate for the word, but Miss Lansdale said, again confidently:—

"Oh, but I really am," and this with a finality that seemed to close the incident.

Her voice had the warm little roughness of a thrush's, which sings through a throat that is loosely strung with wires of soft gold.

"In my day," began Miss Caroline; but here I rebelled, no longer perceiving any good reason to be overborne by her daughter. I could endure only a certain amount of that.

"Your day is to-day," I interrupted, "and to-morrow and many to-morrows. You are a woman