s a little attack on the poodle, who snaps
back at him, barking vigorously, and evidently enjoying herself
immensely.

"I want a decisive answer from you," says his mother.

"A decisive answer! How can I give that?"

He is still laughing, but even as he laughs a sound from without
checks him. It is another laugh--happy, young, joyous. Instinctively
both he and Lady Rylton look towards the open window. There below,
still attended by Mr. Gower, and coming back from her charitable
visit to the swans, is Tita, her little head upheld, her bright eyes
smiling, her lips parted. There is a sense of picturesque youth
about the child that catches Rylton's attention, and holds it for
the moment.

"There she is," says he at last, looking back over his shoulder at
his mother. "Is _that_ the wife you have meted out for me--that
baby?"

"Be serious about it, Maurice; it is a serious latter, I assure
you."

"Fancy being serious with a baby! She's too young, my dear mother.
She couldn't know her duty to her neighbours yet, to say nothing of
her duty to her husband."

"You could teach her."

"I doubt it. They have taken that duty off nowadays, haven't they?"
He is still looking at Tita through the window; her gay little laugh
comes up to him again. "Do you know, she is very pretty," says he
dispassionately; "and what a little thing! She always makes me think
of a bird, or a mouse, or a----"

"Think of her as a girl," says his mother impatiently.

"Certainly. After all, it would be impossible to think of her as a
boy; she's too small."

"I don't know about that," said Lady Rylton, shrugging her
shoulders. "She's much more a boy than a girl, where her manners are
concerned."

"Poor little hoyden! That's what you call her, isn't it--a hoyden?"

"Did Marian tell you that?"

"Marian? Certainly not!" says Sir Maurice, telling his lie
beautifully. "Marian thinks her beneath notion. So would you,
if----" He pauses. "If she hadn't a penny you wouldn't know her," he
says presently; "and you admit she has no manners, yet you ask me to
marry her. Now, if I did marry her, what should I do with her?"

"Educate her! Control her! Says his mother, a little viciously.

"I confess I am not equal to the occasion. I could not manage a
baby. The situation doesn't suit me."

"Maurice--it _must!"_ Lady Rylton rises, and, standing near him with
her hand on the table, looks at him with a pale face. "You find
fault with her; so do I, and f