Mrs. Marchmont, comforting her still whining pet.

"What DISCOURTESY!" said Lottie.

"What is the matter with you all?" asked Mr. Dimmerly, rising. "From
talking Latin you have got on something that I understand as well
as Choctaw. Lottie, I hope you are not argued out of one of our
best old English customs. I have inherited whist from a dozen
generations. So, nephew, with your leave or your frown, I must have
my game."

"I cannot say, uncle, that Mr. Hemstead has argued very much, but
two very painful TALES have been presented in an imPRESSIVE manner.
You see how moved auntie and Fido are still over one of them. But
come, Mr. Hemstead, you have discharged your duty. If they play
whist all night and commit suicide in the morning, your skirts are
clear. Shake off the dust of your feet at them, and take a promenade
in the hall with me. Cousin Julian" (with emphasis on the word
cousin), "your conscience is as tough and elastic as Mr. Hemstead's
is tender. You haunt smoking-cars and other questionable places;
so, without serious moral harm, you can gratify uncle."

Mrs. Marchmont, who had listened with polite weariness to the latter
part of the discussion, now took part in the game as quietly as
she would pour tea at the head of the table. The aunt and nephew
had lived in such different atmospheres that they could scarcely
understand each other, and both harbored thoughts that were hardly
charitable, as is usually the case in regard to those actions which
have no moral qualities in themselves, and after all must be decided
by each one's conscience. To Mrs. Marchmont, with her antecedents,