the milky-fair, sunny-faced, wholesome woman that she was presently to
become. Deb gazed at her with aches of regret--she had thought them
for ever stifled in Claud's all-sufficing companionship--for her own
lost motherhood, and of lesser but still poignant regret that she had
not been allowed to adopt Nannie in Bob Goldsworthy's place. The joy of
dressing and taking out a daughter of that stamp--of having her at
home with one, to make the tea, and to chat with, and to lean on! Old
Keziah came to the door--Keziah sleek and placid, like the family she
served--delighted to welcome the distinguished traveller, but still
more delighted to brag about the last Breen baby.

"A lovely boy, without spot or blemish," said Keziah, three
times over. "And that makes eleven, and not one too many. And Miss Rose
doing fine, thank you. I'll go and prepare her for the surprise, so it
don't upset her."

Constance, quite a grown young lady, met her aunt on the stairs;
Kathleen and Lucy rose from the piano in the drawing-room, where they
had been entertaining their mother at a safe distance with their
latest-learned "pieces"; they too had to be greeted and kissed--and
sweeter flesh to kiss no lips could ask for. "My husband may be a
draper," Rose had often said, "but I'll trouble you to show me a duke
with a handsomer family."

Mentally, Deb compared the cool, flower-petal cheeks of her Breen
nieces with her Goldsworthy nephew's mouth, covering those unpleasant
teeth. It would have been fairer to compare him with her Breen nephews,
but there the contrast would have been nearly as great. John, at
business with his father, and Pennycuick, learning station management
with the Simpsons at Bundaboo, had the fresh and cleanly appearance of