and you don't, so there!"

"I suppose that ours is a female house," said Margaret,
"and one must just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don't mean
that this house is full of women. I am trying to say
something much more clever. I mean that it was irrevocably
feminine, even in father's time. Now I'm sure you
understand! Well, I'll give you another example. It'll
shock you, but I don't care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a
dinner-party, and that the guests had been Leighton,
Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do
you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have
been artistic? Heavens no! The very chairs on which they
sat would have seen to that. So with our house--it must be
feminine, and all we can do is to see that it isn't
effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but I
won't, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates
can do is to see that it isn't brutal."

"That house being the W.'s house, I presume," said Tibby.

"You're not going to be told about the W.'s, my child,"
Helen cried, "so don't you think it. And on the other hand,
I don't the least mind if you find out, so don't you think
you've done anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette."

"You do what you can for the house," said Margaret.
"The drawing-room reeks of smoke."

"If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn