"Your feet grow larger every day," said the agonized
Harriet, and gave her niece a violent push. Then Irma
cried, and Mrs. Herriton was annoyed with Harriet for
betraying irritation. Lunch was nasty; and during pudding
news arrived that the cook, by sheer dexterity, had broken a
very vital knob off the kitchen-range. "It is too bad,"
said Mrs. Herriton. Irma said it was three bad, and was
told not to be rude. After lunch Harriet would get out
Baedeker, and read in injured tones about Monteriano, the
Mons Rianus of Antiquity, till her mother stopped her.
"It's ridiculous to read, dear. She's not trying to
marry any one in the place. Some tourist, obviously, who's
stopping in the hotel. The place has nothing to do with it
at all."
"But what a place to go to! What nice person, too, do
you meet in a hotel?"
"Nice or nasty, as I have told you several times before,
is not the point. Lilia has insulted our family, and she
shall suffer for it. And when you speak against hotels, I
think you forget that I met your father at Chamounix. You
can contribute nothing, dear, at present, and I think you
had better hold your tongue. I am going to the kitchen, to
speak about the range."
She spoke just too much, and the cook said that if she
could not give satisfaction--she had better leave. A small
thing at hand is greater than a great thing remote, and
Lilia, misconducting herself upon a mountain in Central
Italy, was immediately hidden.
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