"He doesn't like his mother," said the old lady, as if that were an
answer.

"I never said he did. And she adores him."

"Oh, your mother's adorations!"

"Don't abuse her now," the girl rejoined, after a pause.

The old lady forbore to abuse her, but she made up for it the next
moment by saying: "It will be dreadful for Edith."

"What will be dreadful?"

"Your desertion of her."

"The desertion's on her side."

"Her consideration for her father does her honour."

"Of course I'm a brute, n'en parlons plus," said the girl. "We must
go our respective ways," she added, in a tone of extreme wisdom and
philosophy.

Her grandmother straightened out her knitting and began to roll it
up. "Be so good as to ring for my maid," she said, after a minute.
The young lady rang, and there was another wait and another conscious
hush. Before the maid came her mistress remarked: "Of course then
you'll not come to ME, you know."