niece," said the old man.

His son broke into a laugh. "He'll think you mean that as a provocation!
My dear father, you've lived with the English for thirty years, and
you've picked up a good many of the things they say. But you've never
learned the things they don't say!"

"I say what I please," the old man returned with all his serenity.

"I haven't the honour of knowing your niece," Lord Warburton said. "I
think it's the first time I've heard of her."

"She's a niece of my wife's; Mrs. Touchett brings her to England."

Then young Mr. Touchett explained. "My mother, you know, has been
spending the winter in America, and we're expecting her back. She writes
that she has discovered a niece and that she has invited her to come out
with her."

"I see,--very kind of her," said Lord Warburton. Is the young lady
interesting?"

"We hardly know more about her than you; my mother has not gone into
details. She chiefly communicates with us by means of telegrams, and her
telegrams are rather inscrutable. They say women don't know how to write
them, but my mother has thoroughly mastered the art of condensation.
'Tired America, hot weather awful, return England with niece, first
steamer decent cabin.' That's the sort of message we get from her--that
was the last that came. But there had been another before, which I think
contained the first mention of the niece. 'Changed hotel, very bad,
impudent clerk, address here. Taken sister's girl, died last year, go to
Europe, two sisters, quite independent.' Over that my father and I
have scarcely stopped puzzling; it seems to admit of so many
interpretations."

"There's one thing very clear in it," said the old man; "she has given
the hotel-clerk a dressing."

"I'm not sure even of that, since he has driven her from the field. We
thought at first that the sister mentioned might be the sister of the
clerk; but the subsequent mention of a niece seems to prove that the
allusion is to one of my aunts. Then there was a question as to whose
the two other sisters were; they are probably two of my late aunt's
daughters. But who's 'quite independent,' and in what sense is the term
used?--that point's not yet settled. Does the expression apply more
particularly to the young lady my mother has adopted, or does it
characterise her sisters equally?--and is it used in a moral or in a
financial sense? Does it mean that they've been left well off, or
that they wish to be under no obligations?