Mrs. Mallet, put in. "But do you know, dear, I didn't
think your jacket was half warm enough."

"Mamma doesn't like me to wear a warmer one," the child answered, with a
visible shudder of recollection, "though I should love to, Aunt Lina."

"My precious Ettie, what nonsense--for a violent exercise like
bicycling! Where one gets so hot! So unbecomingly hot! You'd be simply
stifled, darling." I caught a darted glance which accompanied the words
and which made Ettie recoil into the recesses of her pudding.

"But yesterday was so cold, Clara," Mrs. Mallet went on, actually
venturing to oppose the infallible authority. "A nipping morning. And
such a flimsy coat! Might not the dear child be allowed to judge for
herself in a matter purely of her own feelings?"

Mrs. Le Geyt, with just the shadow of a shrug, was all sweet
reasonableness. She smiled more suavely than ever. "Surely, Lina," she
remonstrated, in her frankest and most convincing tone, "_I_ must know
best what is good for dear Ettie, when I have been watching her
daily for more than six months past, and taking the greatest pains
to understand both her constitution and her disposition. She needs
hardening, Ettie does. Hardening. Don't you agree with me, Hugo?"

Le Geyt shuffled uneasily in his chair. Big man as he was, with his
great black beard and manly bearing, I could see he was afraid to differ
from her overtly. "Well,--m--perhaps, Clara," he began, peering from
under the shaggy eyebrows, "it would be best for a delicate child like
Ettie--"

Mrs. Le Geyt smiled a compassionate smile. "Ah, I forgot," she cooed,
sweetly. "Dear Hugo never CAN understand the upbringing of children. It
is a sense denied him. We women know"--with a sage nod. "They were wild
little savages when I took them in hand first--weren't you, Maisie? Do
you remember, dear, how you broke the looking-glass in the boudoir, like
an untamed young monkey? Talking of monkeys, Mr. Cotswould, HAVE you
seen those delightful, clever, amusing French pictures at that place in
Suffolk Street? There's a man there--a Parisian--I forget his honoured
name--Leblanc, or Lenoir, or Lebrun, or something--but he's a most
humorous artist, and he paints monkeys and storks and all sorts of queer
beasties ALMOST as quaintly and expressively as you do. Mind, I say
ALMOST, for I never will allow that any Frenchman could do anything
QUITE so good, quite so funnily mock-human, as your marabouts and
professors."

"Wha