“Possibilities? You see possibilities in the place as well as in me? You look through the eyes of an incorrigible optimist. Your generosity runs away with you. Possibilities? Should I learn how to test the quality of milk, for example? I believe there is a pretty good lot of beasts at the home farm. I wonder, by the way, what becomes of all the milk.” “Look into that. I don’t want to be the means of depriving any deserving or undeserving family of their perquisites; but you take the first opportunity of placing the transaction--the benefaction--on a proper basis. And take the advice of one who knows, and get rid of that nice lot of beasts which you have heard are on the home farm.” “You mean to say that they are not a nice lot?” “They were a nice lot ten years ago, my father told me; but instead of being kept up to the highest level, they have been allowed to degenerate to a frightful extent.” “How?” “The same way as any first-class stock degenerates--by marrying beneath them. Now the matrimonial alliances among the beasts on that farm would make any matchmaking mother weep. There’s not one in the family that did not make a _mesalliance_ at some time of her life. And your grandfather was so careful in this respect. If you have any respect for his memory you will get rid of the lot.” He was greatly interested in her revelations, and said so, adding, “What a juggins you must all think me! But I suppose that was because you worked on the same principle as Adam did when he was asked to give the fox a name. ‘I’ll call it a fox,’ said he, ‘and a better name you’ll not get for it, because it’s a fox, if I know anything about animals.’ You couldn’t find a better name for me than a juggins, because I am one.” “That’s nonsense,” she said. “There’s nothing of the juggins about you if I know what a juggins is. If you were one would you be talking here to me on the most important topics that an owner of property can talk about, when you might be criticizing some of the play at the nets? And if I thought you a juggins would I talk to you for five minutes--for one single minute? I’m mistress of myself. I’m independent of the opinion of any of the people here. I see no reason to be bored for the sake of being polite. I told you the last time we met just what I thought of you, and since then I’ve thought more on precisely the same lines. Of course I feel flattered at your listening to all that I have to say; but I’m not so eager for flattery that I should bother myself talking to you for the pure joy of seeing you listen to me with one ear while I knew that all the time everything I said was trickling out by the other. Now the next word you say depreciating yourself will make me consider that you are trying to depreciate me, so I’ll get up and walk away, or else say something about the weather.”