mutters.

'H'sh!' says my father, and the reading is resumed.

Perhaps the woman who came along the path was of tall and majestic
figure, which should have shown my mother that I had contrived to
start my train without her this time. But it did not.

'What are you laughing at now?' says my sister severely. 'Do you
not hear that she was a tall, majestic woman?'

'It's the first time I ever heard it said of her,' replies my
mother.

'But she is.'

'Ke fy, havers!'

'The book says it.'

'There will be a many queer things in the book. What was she
wearing?'

I have not described her clothes. 'That's a mistake,' says my
mother. 'When I come upon a woman in a book, the first thing I
want to know about her is whether she was good-looking, and the
second, how she was put on.'

The woman on the path was eighteen years of age, and of remarkable
beauty.