"They're pretty good," said their father, unruffledly judicial. Jane was
in the habit of reading him passages that she considered particularly
effective. In listening to her perorations he sometimes felt himself as
assisting at the liquidation of the universe.

"Now, here we are," proceeded Jane, with unabated exegetical energy, "an
old family, with position and plenty of means and everything to make an
impression. Why can't we do it? Why can't we manage to assert ourselves?
I'm not speaking for myself, of course; I'm a back number"--this half
hysterically, between a gulp and a giggle--"I'm 'gone beyond recall,' and
nobody knows that better than I myself. No; I'm speaking for all of us.
Besides, here's Rosy, just coming up, and--"

"Thank you, Jane," remarked Rosamund, with some acerbity. "You needn't
mind me. I can look after myself."

"--and it seems to me," went on Jane, ardently, "that people who have
succeeded might just as well give some outer token of it. I declare, when
I called on Mrs. Bates and went over the place and compared their house
and their way of living with ours--"

Her aunt looked up suddenly. "Mrs. Bates? What Mrs. Bates? Mrs. Granger
Bates?"

"Yes. When I saw what magnificent style she lived in, and how she had
about everything that--"

"So you know Mrs. Bates, too," her aunt again interrupted. "Pleasant
woman, isn't she? Have I ever told you how she and I used to play
backgammon together at St. Augustine?"