bow, and poured its contents over
Georgy's fair bullet-head; with which, and with a triumphing cry
(learnt from a County Cork kitchenmaid, and very fashionable in the
schoolroom) of "A-haadie!" she fled, "lighter-footed than the fox,"
and equally subtle and daring.

Christian was not easily roused to wrath, but when this occurred,
youngest of the party though she was, it was but rarely that victory
did not rest with her. Two subjects were marked dangerous among these
children, during the combative years of "growing-up," and were
therefore specially popular; of these, the one was Christian's reputed
occult power, coupled with gibes based on that hymn to which reference
has been made; the other was Larry's religion.

To the Talbot-Lowry children, their own religion was largely a matter
of fetishes, with fluctuating restrictions as to what might or might
not be done on Sundays, but they found Larry's a more stimulating
subject. It was impossible for them to refrain from speculations as to
what Larry said when he went to confession; equally impossible not to
propose to the prospective penitent an assortment of sins to be avowed
at his next shriving, even though the suggestions seldom failed to
provoke conflict of the intensity usually associated with religious
warfare.

Lady Isabel, confronted with these problems, fell back on the manuals
of her own youth, with their artless pronouncements on the Righteous,
the Wicked, their qualifications, their prospects; and, since the
manuals had an indisputable _flair_ for the subjects most likely
to seize the attention of the young, Lady Isabel was generally able to
divert her offspring's attention from the Errors of Rome, with
digested narratives of "Adamaneve" (pronounced as one word) and the
Serpent, Balaam's Ass, Jonah's Whale, and similar non-controversial
matters.

"Wiser people than you and me, darlings," she would say, with a slight
stagger in grammar, but none in orthodoxy, "have explained it all for
us--"

"Larry's papa and mamma didn't quite think the same as we do, but we
needn't think about that, my pet!"

"But, mother, Evans says that the Pope--" appalling prognostications
as to the future of that dignitary would probably follow.

Unfortunate Lady Isabel! But parents and guardians have, at least, the
power of the closure.

"We needn't talk about it now," says the hard-pressed mother, "when
you're grown up you will understand it all better--"

With Christian,