"That's a nice little girl I see sometimes down at your place. That
Winny Dymond. Is she a friend of Vi'let's?"

Ranny said she was.

"Has Vi'let known her long?"

"I think so. I can't say exactly how long."

"Before she was married?"

"Yes."

Something in his manner made her pause, pondering.

"Did _you_ know her before you married, Ran?"

"Ages before."

His mother sighed.

"I suppose," said Ranny, harking back, "some women _are_ like that."

"Like what now?" She didn't want to go back to it. She was afraid of
what she might be driven to say.

"Not caring much about their own kids."

"Oh, Ranny, why do you 'arp on it?"

"Because I don't understand it. It's just the one thing I can't
understand. What does it _mean_, Mother?"

"Well, my dear, sometimes it means that they can't care for anything but
their 'usbands. It's 'usband, 'usband with them all the time. There's
some," she elaborated, "that care most for their 'usbands, and there's
some that care most for their children."

(He wondered which would Winny Dymond care for most?)

"And there's some," said Mrs. Ransome, "that care most for both, and
care different, and that's best."

(Winny, he somehow fancied, would have been that sort.)

"Which did _you_ care for most, Mother?"

"You mustn't ask me that question, Ranny. I can't answer it."

But he knew. He felt her yearning toward him even then. There was
something very artful, and at the same time very comforting, about his
mother. She had made him feel that Violet was all right, that he was all
right, that everything, in fact, was all right; that he was, indeed,
twice blest since he had a wife who loved him better than her child, and
a mother who loved him better than her husband.

"Talking of husbands," he said, "how's the Torpichen Badger?"

She shook her head at him in the old way; keeping it up.

"Oh, Ranny, you mustn't call your father that."

"Why not?"

"It's a whisky, my dear."

(He could have sworn there was the ghost of a smile about her soft
mouth.)

"So it is. I forgot. Well, how's the Hedgehog?"

For all her smile Mrs. Ransome seemed to be breaking down all of a
sudden, as if in another moment the truth would have come out of her;
but she recovered, and she kept it up.

"He's had the Headache come on more than ever. I've never known a time
when His Headache has been so bad. Most constant it is."

Ranny preserved a respectful silence.

"He's worrying. That's