and get _clear_ away from the worries of house-keeping and--" the
tyranny of father, I am about to add, but pull myself up with a jerk,
and substitute lamely and stammeringly "and--and--others."

"Any thing else?"

"I should not at all mind a donkey-carriage for Tou Tou, but I shall not
_insist_ upon that."

He is smiling broadly now. The shade has fled away, and only sunshine
remains.

"And what for yourself? you seem to have forgotten yourself!"

"For myself!" I echo, in surprise, "I have been telling you--you cannot
have been listening--all these things are for myself."

Again he has turned his face half away.

"I hope you will get your wish," he says shortly and yet heartily.

I laugh. "That is so probable, is not it? I am so likely to fall in with
a rich young man of weak intellect who is willing to marry all the whole
six of us, for that is what he would have to do, and so I should explain
to him."

Sir Roger is looking at me again with an odd smile--not disagreeable in
any way--not at all hold-cheap, or as if he were sneering at me for a
simpleton, but merely _odd_.