Reginald was twelve years of age, undersized and ill-nourished.
("They feed them badly," his mother had explained, "an' the
teachin's no good either, but it's a school for gentlemen.")
"Honestly," said Sylvia, "he was the queerest little mannikin--like
the tiny waiter's assistants you see in hotels on the Continent. He
wore his Eton suit, you understand--grown-up evening clothes minus
the coat-tails, and a top hat. He sat at tea and chatted with the
mincing graces of a cotillion-leader; you expected to find some of
his hair gone when he took off his hat! He spoke of his brother, the
duke, who had gone off shooting seals somewhere. 'The jolly rotter
has nothing to do but spend his money; but we younger sons have to
work like dogs when we grow up!' I asked what he'd do, and he said
'I suppose there's nothin' but the church. It's a beastly bore, but
you do get a livin' out of it.'

"That was too much for me," said Sylvia. "I proceeded to tell the
poor, blasé infant about my childhood; how my sister Celeste and I
had caught half-tamed horses and galloped about the pasture on them,
when we were so small that our little fat legs stuck out
horizontally; how we had given ourselves convulsions in the green
apple orchard, and had to be spanked every day before we had our
hair combed. I told how we heard a war-story about a "train of
gunpowder," and proceeded to lay such a train about the attic of
Castleman Hall, and set fire to it. I might have spent the afternoon
teaching the future churchman how to be a boy, if I hadn't suddenly
caught a glimpse of my husband's face!"

12. I did not hear these stories all at once. I have put them
together here because they make a little picture of her honeymoon,
and also because they show how, without meaning it, she was giving