can't pick out a word to show where you said it, but the tone of your
letter is exactly this, 'Here's the money for you, and if you take it
you're doing an unheard-of thing.' _She_ saw it right enough. Her answer
is just defence of why she has to take it--some of it. She's a mother
with three children, struggling to keep above water. She's a human
animal fighting for her young. So she takes, most apologetically, most
unhappily, a part of what he left her, and she hates to take that. It's
the most pitiful thing--"

"Piteous," corrected Miss Maria, in a tone like a bite.

Mr. Fowler laid the tips of his fingers very delicately on his nephew's
knee. "Will you show me the place or places where I make these very
damaging observations?"

"That's just it. I can't pick them out, but--"

"I am sure that you cannot, because they exist only in your
somewhat--shall we say, lyrical imagination? I laid the circumstances
before the woman and she acted as she saw fit to act. Hugh, my dear boy,
I wish that you would try to restrain your--your growing tendency to
excitability. I know that this is a trying day for all of us."

"O Lord, yes! It brings it all back," said Hugh, miserably. "I'm sorry
if I said anything offensive sir, but--" He gave it up. "You know I have
a devil, sometimes." He gave a half-embarrassed laugh.

"Offensive--if you have said anything offensive?" Miss Fowler boiled
over. "Is that all you are going to say, Winthrop? If so--"