In her mother was a vein of perceptive shrewdness that occasionally cropped out and made all Hilda's critical philosophy seem school-girlish.) "Do you think I don't know George Cannon?
He came here o' purpose to get that rent-collecting.
Well, he's got it, and he's welcome to it, for I doubt not he'll do it a sight better than poor Mr.Skellorn! But he needn't hug himself that he's been too clever for me, because he hasn't.

I gave him the rent-collecting because I thought I would!...

Buy! He's no more got a good customer for Calder Street than he's got a good customer for this slop-bowl!" Hilda resented this casual detraction of a being who had so deeply impressed her.

And moreover she was convinced that her mother, secretly very flattered and delighted by the visit, was adopting a derisive attitude in order to 'show off' before her daughter.

Parents are thus ingenuous! But she was so shocked and sneaped that she found it more convenient to say nothing.
"George Cannon could talk the hind leg off a horse," Mrs.Lessways continued quite happily.