4“It was Matilda who read that letter; my mother’s aversion from it was all too evident. I can still remember Matilda’s large red face thrust forward over the supper things and a little on one side so as to bring the eye she was using into focus and get the best light from the feeble little gas-bracket. Beside her was Prue, with a slack curious face and a restive glance that went ever and again to my mother’s face, as a bandsman watches the conductor’s baton. My mother sat back with a defensive expression on her white face, and Ernest was posed, wide and large, in a non-committal attitude, ostentatiously unable to make ‘ead or tail’ of the affair.
“Let’s see,’ said Matilda, and took a preliminary survey of the task before her...
“‘My dear Ernie,’ she says...
“‘My dear Ernie:
“‘It was w
