HYLAND
'I wonder if the other people in the car can hear us?'
'I fancy not; we don't hear them— not consecutively, at least.'
'Well, mother was born in Vermont, you know; she was the only
child by a second marriage. Aunt Hannah and Aunt Maria are
only half-aunts to me, you know.'
'I hope they are half as nice as you are.'
'Roger, be still; they certainly will hear us.'
'Well, don't you want them to know we are married?'
'Yes, but not just married. There's all the difference in the world.'
'You are afraid we look too happy!'
'No; only I want my happiness all to myself.'
'Well, the little room?'
'My aunts brought mother up; they were nearly twenty years
older than she. I might say Hiram and they brought her up. You
see, Hiram was bound out to my grandfather when he was a
boy, and when grandfather died Hiram said he "s'posed he went
with the farm, long o' the critters," and he has been there ever
since. He was my mother's only refuge from the decorum of
my aunts. They are simply workers. They make me think of the
Maine woman who wanted her epitaph to be: "She was a hard
working woman."'
