family of Lord Lawdor. On the contrary his four little giants of
sons throve astonishingly and a few months after the Gareth-Lawless
wedding Lady Lawdor--a trifle effusively, as it were--presented her
husband with twin male infants so robust that they were humorously
known for years afterwards as the "Twin Herculeses."

By that time Amabel had become "Feather" and despite Robert's
ingenious and carefully detailed method of living upon nothing
whatever, had many reasons for knowing that "life is a back street
in London" is not a matter of beds of roses. Since the back street
must be the "right street" and its accompaniments must wear an aspect
of at least seeming to belong to the right order of detachment and
fashionable ease, one was always in debt and forced to keep out of
the way of duns, and obliged to pretend things and tell lies with
aptness and outward gaiety. Sometimes one actually was so far driven
to the wall that one could not keep most important engagements and
the invention of plausible excuses demanded absolute genius. The
slice of a house between the two big ones was a rash feature of
the honeymoon but a year of giving smart little dinners in it and
going to smart big dinners from it in a smart if small brougham
ended in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of balancing oneself
on the edge of a sword.

Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity of course.
Nobody had contemplated her for a moment. Feather cried for a week
when she first announced the probability of her advent. Afterwards
however she managed to forget the approaching annoyance and went
to parties and danced to the last hour continuing to be a great
success because her prettiness was delicious and her diaphanous
mentality was no train upon the minds of her admirers male and