"The child don't above half know what he's talking about, not to say _know_!" Thus Aunt M'riar in a semi-aside to the old lady. It was gratuitous insult to add:--"He don't reely know what's a grandson, ma'am."
Dave's blue eyes flashed indignation. "Yorse I _does_ know!" cried he, loud enough to lay himself open to remonstrance. He continued under due restraint:--"I'm going to be old Mrs. Marrowbone's grangson." He then remembered that the treaty was conditional, and added a proviso:--"So long as I'm a good boy!"
"Won't you be my grandson, too, Davy darling?" said old Mrs. Prichard. And, if you can conceive it, there was pain in her voice--real pain--as well as the treble of old age. She was jealous, you see; jealous of this old Mrs. Marrowbone, who seemed to come between her and her little new-found waterspring in the desert.
But Dave was embarrassed, and she took his embarrassment for reluctance to grant her the same status as old Mrs. Marrowbone. It was nothing of the sort. It was merely his doubt whether such an arrangement would be permissible under canon law. It was bigamy, however much you chose to prevaricate. The old lady's appealing voice racked Dave's feelings. "I carn't!" he exclaimed, harrowed. "I've spromussed to be Mrs. Marrowbone's grangson--I have." And thereupon old Mrs. Prichard, perceiving that he was really distressed, hastened to set his mind at ease. Of course he couldn't be her grandson, if he was already Mrs. Marrowbone's. She overlooked or ignored the possible compromise offered by the fact that two grandmothers are the common lot of all mankind. But it would be unjust--this was clear to her--that Dave should suffer in any way from her jealous disposition. So she put her little grievance away in her inmost heart--where indeed there was scarcely room for it, so preoccupied had the places been--and then, as an active step towards forgetting it, went on to talk to Dave about old Mrs. Marrowbone, although she was not Mr. Marrowbone the Smith's grandmother.
"Tell us, Dave dear, about old Mrs. Marrowbone. Is she very old? Is she as old as me?" To which Aunt M'riar as a sort of Greek chorus added:--"There, Davy, now, you be a good boy, and tell how old Mrs. Marrowbone is."