graphed across one corner.

"Gilbert's wife," pronounced Grandmama, non-committally from her easy
chair, and, said in that tone, it was quite sufficient comment. "Another
cup of tea, please, Emily."

Mrs. Hilary gave it to her, then began to read aloud the letter from
Gilbert's wife. Gilbert's wife was one of the topics upon which she and
Grandmama were in perfect accord, only that Mrs. Hilary was irritated
when Grandmama pushed the responsibility for the relationship onto her by
calling Rosalind "your daughter-in-law."

Mrs. Hilary began to read the letter in the tone used by well-bred women
when they would, if in a slightly lower social stratum, say "Fancy that
now! Did you ever, the brazen hussy!" Grandmama listened, cynically
disapproving, prepared to be disgusted yet entertained. On the whole she
thoroughly enjoyed letters from Gilbert's wife. She settled down
comfortably in her chair with her second cup of tea, while Mrs. Hilary
read two pages of what Grandmama called "foolish chit-chat." Rosalind's
letters were really like the gossipping imbecilities written by Eve of
the Tatler, or the other ladies who enliven our shinier-paper weeklies
with their bright personal babble. She did not often waste one of them on
her mother-in-law; only when she had something to say which might annoy
her.

"Do you hear from Nan?" the third page of the letter began. "I hear from
the Bramertons, who are wintering in Rome--the Charlie Bramertons, you
know, great friends of mine and Gilbert's (he won a pot of money on the
Derby this year and they've a dinky flat in some palace out there--), and
they meet Nan about, and she's always with Stephen Lumley, the painter
(rotten painter, if you ask me, but he's somehow diddled London into
admiring him, don't expect you've heard of him down at the seaside).
Well, they're quite simply _always_ together, and the Brams say that
everyone out there says it isn't in the least an ambiguous case--no two
ways about it. He doesn't live with his wife, you know. You'll excuse me
passing this on to you, but it does seem you ought to know. I mentioned
it to Neville the other day, just before the poor old dear went down with
the plague, but you know what Neville is, she always sticks up for Nan
and doesn't care _what_ she does, or what people say. People are talking;
beasts, aren't they! But that's the way of this wicked old world, we all
do it. Gilbert's quite upset about it, says Nan ought to manage her