aid, and--did. If people knew, they'd tease me, and
watch me, and I couldn't bear that. I just couldn't bear it! Then
there's Jemmy. She's so odd. She doesn't like to see me kissing the
baby, even, or loving it. She thinks it isn't quite nice. If she knew
about Mr. Channing--! Besides, she's so much cleverer than I am, so much
more his sort, really. If he'd known her first he would probably have
liked her best. I'd rather--just for a while, I'd rather--"

"Keep him out of Jemima's reach?" murmured Philip, amused.

She nodded. "You _do_ understand things, don't you? Jemmy's so much
cleverer than I am. Just until I'm sure of him, Philip--"

He asked quietly, "You're not sure of him, then?"

She gave him a demure glance under her infantile lashes. "Oh, yes, I am!
But he's not quite sure of himself." She chuckled. "Mr. Channing
_thinks_ he doesn't want to marry any one, you see!"

It was what Philip had been waiting for from the first. His voice
changed a little, and became the voice of the priest. "You need not tell
your sister, Jacqueline; but your mother ought to know of this."

"I don't want her to know."

"Why not?"

"Oh, because," was the purely feminine answer. She added, troubled by
his grave silence, "Mummy might not want me to see so much of him, if
she knew. She can't realize that I'm grown up now. Old people forget how
they felt when they were young." She was vaguely trying to express
love's dread of being brought to earth, of being hampered by the fetters
of a fixed relation.

"'Old people!' Your mother?" Philip spoke rather sharply.

"Oh, well, not _old_, of course. Still, she's too old to fall in
love.--Anyway, there are some things a girl can't talk about with her
mother; you ought to know there are." The glance she gave him was both
embarrassed and appealing.

Alas for Kate's carefully fostered intimacy with her children, vanished
at the first touch of a warmer breath!

Philip put his hand over hers on the bridle-rein. "My dear," he said
earnestly, "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot talk about
with your mother. She's that sort. Always remember it."

She jerked her hand away with a pettish gesture. "For goodness' sake,
stop being so ancient and fatherly! And what right have you to tell me
anything about mother? I don't mind your explaining about God to me, and
Christian duty, and things like that. It's your business, and I suppose
it bores you as much as anybody. But when you ta