The Pallinders, to their honour be it said, never seemed to be ashamed of Mrs. Botlisch. They had their notions of _noblesse oblige_, too, strange as that may sound. Reflecting upon it now, I see certain a heroism in the respect they paid that dreadful, screeching, vile-tongued old termagant. I have known prosperous, reputable families, who paid the butcher and thought it a sin to play cards, wherein the unornamental older members were not treated with one-half the consideration these kind-hearted, conscienceless outlaws bestowed on Mrs. Botlisch. She was a fat harridan of seventy with a blotched red face, a great, coarse, husky voice like a man's and thick hands, the nails bitten down to the quick. She liked to go about without corsets or shoes in a shapeless gaberdine she called a double-gown--not too clean at that. She kept a bottle of whisky on her mantelpiece; she had a disconcerting habit of whisking out her teeth and laying them down wherever she chanced to be; you might come upon them grinning amongst Mazie's music on the piano, or under the sofa-cushions. She frankly enjoyed a loose story, and made a point of telling them in mixed companies of young people. She alternately bullied the servants and gossiped with them in the kitchen; once I most inopportunely happened upon Mrs. Botlisch engaged in a battle-royal with one of the chambermaids over some trifle--a broken dish, perhaps--in the pantry. Fortunately, I could not understand one word they uttered; and after a little, Mrs. Pallinder came, looking quite grey over her handsome resolute face, and took her mother away still shrieking hideous abuse. "Ma is so eccentric," she said to me afterwards, with a ghastly smile; and some feeling, of mingled horror and compassion, withheld me from reporting the wretched scene. In most households, these undesirable parents can be thrust, gently or not, into the background; in fact, very many parents retire thither of their own accord. But Mrs. Botlisch was not of that type. "I like to set in the parlour an' see the young folks," she said. "Mirandy she don't want me to, but I says to her, 'Mirandy,' says I, 'don't you worry. I'm goin' ter keep my uppers an' lowers in, 'less I git a fish-bone er a hunk o' meat under the plate at dinner, an' I ain't a-goin' to no bed till I git sleepy,' says I. She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid you won't be comf'ble with your--you know--on all evenin'.'" (Here she gave J. B. a poke in the side and dropped her left eyelid). "'Lord love you, don't set there lookin' so innercent like you'd never saw a woman undress in yer life--don't come that over _me_, young feller. She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid you'll feel kinder tight an' uncomf'ble with 'em on all evenin' 'long as you ain't used to wearin' 'em much in the daytime,' she says. 'Land!' says I. 'Mirandy,' I ain't squoze inter my cloze by main stren'th the way Mazie is. 'F I feel uncomf'ble, I'll just undo the bottom buttons of my basque an' I'll be all right, you see.'"