"I really don't know--and as it _has_ to be trade, I can't see that
it matters," says Lady Rylton, frowning.

"Nothing matters, if you come to think of it," says Mrs. Bethune.
"Go on, Margaret--you were in the middle of a sermon; I dare say we
shall endure to the end."

"I was saying that Miss Bolton is only a child."

"She is seventeen. She told us about it last night at dinner. Gave
us month and day. It was very clever of her. We _ought_ to give her
birthday-gifts, don't you think? And yet you call her a child!"

"At seventeen, what else?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Margaret," says Lady Rylton pettishly; "and,
above all things, don't be old-fashioned. There is no such product
nowadays as a child of seventeen. There isn't _time_ for it. It has
gone out! The idea is entirely exploded. Perhaps there were children
aged seventeen long ago--one reads of them, I admit, but it is too
long ago for one to remember. Why, I was only eighteen when I
married your uncle."

"Pour uncle!" says Mrs. Bethune; her tone is full of feeling.

Lady Rylton accepts the feeling as grief for the uncle's death; but
Margaret, casting a swift glance at Mrs. Bethune, wonders if it was
meant for grief for the uncle's life--_with_ Lady Rylton.

"He was the ugliest man I ever saw, without exception," says Lady