Aunt Philippa looked at me out of the corner of her eye and disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram . `` So you want to get married ? '' she said . `` You 'd better wait till you 're grown up . '' `` How old must a person be before she is grown up ? '' I asked gravely . `` Humph ! That depends . Some are grown up when they 're born , and others ai n't grown up when they 're eighty . That same Mrs. Roderick I was speaking of never grew up . She was as foolish when she was a hundred as when she was ten . '' `` Perhaps that 's why she lived so long , '' I suggested . All thought of seeking sympathy in Aunt Philippa had vanished . I resolved I would not even mention Mark 's name . `` Mebbe 't was , '' admitted Aunt Philippa with a grim smile . '' I 'd rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones . '' Much to my relief , she made no further reference to my affairs . As we rounded a curve in the road where two great over-arching elms met , a buggy wheeled by us , occupied by a young man in clerical costume . He had a pleasant boyish face , and he touched his hat courteously . Aunt Philippa nodded very frostily and gave her horse a quite undeserved cut .
`` There 's a man you do n't want to have much XXXXX do with , '' she said portentously .
as at before by in of than till to with