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?"