suggested to the girl a corset and a petticoat with a cynical
unreserve which humiliated me. Was I of no more account than a
wooden dummy? The girl snapped out: "Shan't!"

It was not the naughty retort of a vulgar child; it had a note of
desperation. Clearly my intrusion had somehow upset the balance of
their established relations. The old woman knitted with furious
accuracy, her eyes fastened down on her work.

"Oh, you are the true child of your father! And THAT talks of
entering a convent! Letting herself be stared at by a fellow."

"Leave off."

"Shameless thing!"

"Old sorceress," the girl uttered distinctly, preserving her
meditative pose, chin in hand, and a far-away stare over the
garden.

It was like the quarrel of the kettle and the pot. The old woman
flew out of the chair, banged down her work, and with a great play
of thick limb perfectly visible in that weird, clinging garment of
hers, strode at the girl--who never stirred. I was experiencing a
sort of trepidation when, as if awed by that unconscious attitude,
the aged relative of Jacobus turned short upon me.

She was, I perceived, armed with a knitting-needle; and as she
raised her hand her intention seemed to be to throw it at me like a
dart. But she only used it to scratch her head with, examining me