ch perhaps
expecting Action on the other's part. Moreover, Dolly's approval took
such a tempestuous form that opposition seemed useless. Besides, there
was that fatal assurance about Gwen that belongs to young ladies who
have always had their own way in everything. It cannot be developed in
its fulness late in life.

Aunt M'riar's protest was feeble in the extreme. "Well, I should be
ashamed to let a lady carry me! That I should!" If Aunt M'riar had known
the resources of the Latin tongue, she might have introduced the
expression _ceteris paribus_. No English can compass that amount of
slickness; so her speech was left crude.

Uncle Mo really saw no substantial reason why this beautiful vision
should not sweep Dolly upstairs, if it pleased her. He may have felt
that a formal protest would be graceful, but he could not think of the
right words. And Aunt M'riar had fallen through. Moreover, his memory
was confident that he had left his bedroom-door shut. As to miscarriage
of the expedition into Mrs. Prichard's territory, he had no misgiving.

Miss Grahame was convinced that the incursion would have better results
if she left it to its originator, than if she encumbered it with her own
presence. After all, the room could be no larger than the one she sat
in, and might be smaller. Anyhow, they could get on very well without
her for half an hour. And she wanted a chat with Dave's guardians; she
did not really know them intimately.

"The two little ones must be almost like your own children to you, Mr.
Wardle," said she, to broach the conversation.

"Never had any, ma'am," said Uncle Mo, literal-minded from
constitutional good-faith.

"If you _had_ had any was what I meant." Perhaps the reason Miss
Grahame's eye wandered after Aunt M'riar, who had followed Gwen and
Dolly--to "see that things were straight," she said--was that she felt
insecure on a social point. Uncle Mo's eye followed hers.

"Nor yet M'riar," said he, seeing a precaution necessary. "Or perhaps I
should say _one_. Not good for much, though! Born dead, I believe--years
before ever my brother married her sister. Never set eyes on M'riar's
husband! Name of Catchpole, I believe.... That's her coming down." He
raised his voice, dropped to say this, as she came within
hearing:--"Yes--me and M'riar we share 'em up, the two young characters,
but we ain't neither of us their legal parents. Not strickly as the Law
goes, but we've fed upon 'em like, in a manner