"No."

"Happen she's not such a simple creature as ye thought for, my lass,"
observed James Ollerenshaw.

"You don't mean to infer," said Helen, with cold dignity, "that my
_mother_ would tell me a lie?"

"All as I mean is that Susan was above thirty-nine five years ago, and I
can prove it. I had to get her birth certificate when her father died,
and I fancy I've got it by me yet." And his eyes added: "So much for
that point. One to me."

Helen blushed and frowned, and looked up into the darkling heaven of her
parasol; and then it occurred to her that her wisest plan would be to
laugh. So she laughed. She laughed in almost precisely the same manner
as James had heard Susan laugh thirty years previously, before love had
come into Susan's life like a shell into a fortress, and finally blown
their fragile relations all to pieces. A few minutes earlier the sight
of great-stepuncle James had filled Helen with sadness, and he had not
suspected it. Now her laugh filled James with sadness, and she did not
suspect it. In his sadness, however, he was glad that she laughed so
naturally, and that the sombre magnificence of her dress and her gloves
and parasol did not prevent her from opening her rather large mouth and
showing her teeth.

"It was just like mother to tell me fibs about her age," said Helen,
generously (it is always interesting to observe the transformation of a
lie into a fib). "And I shall write and tell her she's a horrid mean