more of the lives of those very people!' Miss Laetitia interrupted:

'Ignorant! Of course you are ignorant. That is what you ought to
be. Isn't it what we have all been devoting ourselves to effect ever
since you were born? Read your third chapter of Genesis and remember
what came of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.'

'I think the Tree of Knowledge must have been an orange tree.' The
old lady looked up, her interest aroused:

'Why?'

'Because ever since Eden other brides have worn its blossom!' Her
tone was demure. Miss Rowly looked sharply at her, but her sharpness
softened off into a smile.

'H'm!' she said, and was silent. Stephen seized the opportunity to
put her own case:

'Auntie dear, you must forgive me! You really must, for my heart is
set on this. I assure you I am not doing it merely to please myself.
I have thought over the whole matter. Father has always wished me to
be in a position--a position of knowledge and experience--to manage
Normanstand if I should ever succeed him. From the earliest time I
can remember he has always kept this before me, and though of course
I did not at first understand what it meant, I have seemed in the
last few years to know better. Accordingly I learned all sorts of
things under his care, and sometimes even without his help. I have
studied the estate map, and I have been over the estate books and
read some of the leases and all such matters which they deal with in