Willie's answer was an inarticulate grunt.
"I've come to hear all about the funeral," she continued in her bustling manner. "I would have gone myself except for the weather. Now sit down like a good boy and tell me all about." She too treated him as an anemic child still wearing curls.
Willie shook her hand politely. "My mother will tell you," he said. "I have told her everything."
And he slipped from the room leaving the two women, the ferret and the mountain, to put the finishing touches upon the obsequies of Julia Shane.
