“Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a conceited doll it is!”

Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention; coquetry had failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in the vapours.

“Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?” I asked.

“As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing, and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see the old dowager making her recline on a couch, and ‘my son John’ prohibiting excitement, etcetera⁠—faugh! the scene was quite sickening.”

“It would not have been so if the object of attention had been changed: if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre’s place.”

“Indeed! I hate ‘my son John!’ ”

“ ‘My son John!’⁠—whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton’s mother never calls him so.”

“Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is.”

“You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience is now spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from that bed, and vacate this room.”

“Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot . 133 I wonder what always makes you so mighty testy à l’endroit du gros Jean ? 134 ‘John Anderson, my Joe, John!’ Oh, the distinguished name!”