'Yes, Henrietta, after our grandmother--the idea! I don't know how
Reginald dared.'

'Is she a sacred character?' Rose asked dryly. 'Write to her,
Caroline, and say Susan will come on the day that suits her best. You
can't drag her away without warning. Let's treat her courteously,
please.'

'Oh, Rose, dear, I think we are always courteous,' Sophia protested.

Caroline merely said, 'Bah!' and added, 'And what are we going to do
with her when we get her? She'll giggle, she'll have a dreadful
accent, Sophia will blush for her. I shan't. I never blush for
anybody, even myself, but I shall be bored. That's worse, and if you
think I'm going to edit my stories for her benefit, Sophia, you're
mistaken. I never managed to do that, even for the General, and I'm
too old to begin.' She removed her spectacles hastily. 'Too old for
that, anyhow.'

Rose smiled. She thought that probably the child of Reginald Mallett,
living from hand to mouth in boarding houses, the sharer of his
sinking fortunes, the witness of his passions and despairs and
infidelities, would find Caroline's stories innocent enough. Her hope
was that Henrietta would not try to cap them, but the chances were
that she would be a terrible young person, that she would find herself
adrift in the respectability of Radstowe where she was unlikely to
meet those young men, not of the right kind, to whom she was
accustomed.

'She must have her father's room,' Sophia said. She was trying to