anything.'

Mrs. Potter smiled.

'I confess I am trying my hand at the burning subject. But as for
showing it up--well, I am being fair to both sides, I think. I don't
feel I can quite condemn it wholesale, as Peggy does. I find it very
difficult to treat anything like that--I can't help seeing all round a
thing. I'm told it's a weakness, and that I should get on better if I
saw everything in black and white, as so many people do, but it's no use
my trying to alter, at my time of life. One has to write in one's own
way or not at all.'

'Anyhow,' said Clare, 'it's going to be a ripping book, _Socialist
Cecily_; quite one of your best, mother.'

Clare had always been her mother's great stand-by in the matter of
literature. She was also useful as a touchstone, as what her mother did
not call a foolometer. If a book went with Clare, it went with Leila
Yorke's public beyond. Mr. Potter was a less satisfactory reader; he
regarded his wife's books as goods for sale, and his comments were, 'That
should go all right. That's done it,' which attitude, though commercially
helpful, was less really satisfying to the creator than Clare's
uncritical absorption in the characters and the story. Clare was, in
fact, the public, while Mr. Potter was more the salesman.

And the twins were neither, but more like the less agreeable type of
reviewer, when they deigned to read or comment on their mother's books at
all, which was not always. Johnny's attitude towards his mother suggested
that he might say politely, if she mentioned her books, 'Oh, do you