Older if not
shrewder observers than ourselves declared that what went in that house
was what Mrs. Talbert said, and that it went all the more effectively
because what she said Talbert said too.
That might have been because she said so little. When her mother left
the room she let a silence follow in which she seemed too embarrassed
to speak for a while on finding herself alone with my wife, and my wife
decided that the shyness of the girl whose engagement was soon
afterward reported, as well as the easy-goingness of the eldest son,
had come from their mother. As soon as Mrs. Talbert could command
herself, she began to talk, and every word she said was full of sense,
with a little gust of humor in the sense which was perfectly charming.
Absolutely unworldly as she was, she had very good manners; in her
evasive way she was certainly qualified to be the leader of society in
Eastridge, and socially Eastridge thought fairly well of itself. She
did not obviously pretend to so much literature as her mother, but she
showed an even nicer intelligence of our own situation in Eastridge.
She spoke with a quiet appreciation of the improvement in the Banner,
which, although she quoted Mr. Talbert, seemed to be the result of her
personal acquaintance with the paper in the past as well as the
present.
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