and was obliged to make quite an irritating rattle with the teaspoons.
Grandmamma frowned at that.

By the end of the visit we had been invited to view all the glories of
The Hall. (The place is called Ledstone Park; The Hall, apparently,
is Mrs. Gurrage's pet name for the house itself.) We would not find
anything old or shabby there, she assured us.

When they had gone grandmamma said to me, in a voice that always
causes my knees to shake, "Why did you not make a _révérence_ to Mrs.
Gurrage, may I ask?"

"Oh, grandmamma," I said, "courtesy to that person! She would not
have understood in the least, and would only have thought it was the
village 'bob' to a superior."

"My child,"--grandmamma's voice can be terrible in its fine
distinctness--"my teaching has been of little avail if you have not
understood the point, that one has _not_ good manners for the effect
they produce--but for what is due to one's self. This person--who, I
admit, should have entered by the back door and stayed in the kitchen
with Hephzibah--happened to be our guest and is a woman of years--and
yet, because she displeased your senses you failed to remember that
you yourself are a gentlewoman. What she thought or thinks is of not
the smallest importance in the world, but let me ask you in future to
remember, at least, that you are my granddaughter."

A big lump came in my throat.

_I hate the Gurrages!_