- forward course to take, Mr. Shelmerdine," said Grandmamma,
breaking the silence rather grimly.
Please observe that she didn't tell Mother that she declined to sanction the match. In the circumstances, therefore, it is hardly kind to blame Mother for making quite a number of errors.
Of course error the first was to come when Mr. Philip was present in propria persona. But that, we are afraid, was due to the aboriginal defect of a parent in underrating the importance of its offspring. What she ought to have done really, was to have come not as an important unit of the Governing Classes, but to have crept in by stealth, as it were, as the poor human mother humbly craving assistance; and she ought to have kept her foot on the soft pedal throughout the whole of the concerto.
Alas! the manner of Mother's coming had been otherwise. And the longer she remained, the less she ought to have said in order to realize the estimate she had formed of her own wisdom—and when the spouse of a great Proconsul is thinking imperially you can have no idea how great that estimate is.
"Lord Shelmerdine empowers me to offer all reasonable reparation."
Grandmamma was interested to hear that in spite of the fact that the whole matter was so purely academic.
"If there is any special form the young lady—I
