Chapter XIII Heredity

* * * * * Most families have a Laura Meakin. Laura’s outstanding characteristic was an uncompromising sense of duty: much of her crowded, energetic, and mainly futile existence had been devoted to correcting in Mildred’s offspring the faults incident upon their mother’s manner of bringing them up. With Joan and Denny she waged continuous warfare, and they treated her with the frank rudeness due to a declared and invulnerable opponent. “Good morning, everybody!” Laura was a lady of comman…