"But what, my dear, is the objection-- ?" She looked gravely from him to Vanderbank and to Mitchy, and then back again from one of these to the other.

"Do you think I ought to say ?" They both laughed and they both just appeared uncertain, but Vanderbank spoke first.

"I don't imagine, Nanda, that you really know." "No--as a family, you're perfection!" Mitchy broke out.

Before the fire again, with his cup, he addressed his hilarity to Mr.Longdon.

"I told you a tremendous lot, didn't I?
But I didn't tell you about that." His elder maintained, yet with a certain vagueness, the attitude of amiable enquiry.