"There's the Livingstons," she mused, "but they ain't any childern. Only a childish brother-in-law. He's not quite _all there,_ as you might say. It'd be no use tryin' to learn him nothin', seein' he's so odd--seventy-odd--an' his habits like to be fixed. Then, there's the Farrands. But the girls goes to Miss Spenny's school, an' the son's at Columbia. It might upset their plans, if I was to suggest their givin' up where they're at, an' havin' you. Then there's the Grays, an' the Granvilles, an' the Thornes. Addin' 'em all together for childern, they'd come to about half a child a pair. Talk about your race suicide! They say they 'can't afford to have childern.' You can take it from me, it's the poor people are rich nowadays. _We_ can afford to have childern, all right, all right. Then there's Mrs. Sherman--She's got one boy, but he--Radcliffe Sherman--well, he's a limb! A reg'lar young villain. You couldn't manage _him_. Only Lord Ronald can manage Radcliffe Sherman, an' he--" "Lord Ronald?" questioned Claire, when Mrs. Slawson's meditation threatened to become static. "Why, he's Mrs. Sherman's brother, Mr. Frank Ronald, an' no real lord could be handsomer-lookin', or grander-behavin', or richer than him. Mrs. Sherman is a widder, or a divorcy, or somethin' stylish like that. Anyhow, I worked for her this eight years an' more--almost ever since Radcliffe was born, an' I ain't seen hide nor hair o' any Mr. Sherman yet, an' they never speak o' him, so I guess he was either too good or too bad to mention. Mr. Frank an' his mother lives with Mrs. Sherman, an' what Mr. Frank says _goes_. His word is law. She thinks the world of'm, an' well she may, for he's a thorerbred. The way he treats me, for instants. You'd think I was the grandest lady in the land. He never sees me but it's, 'How d'do, Martha?' or, 'How's the childern an' Mr. Slawson these days?' He certainly has got grand ways with'm, Mr. Frank has. An' yet, he's never free. You wouldn't dare make bold with'm. His eyes has a sort o' _keep-off-the-grass_ look gener'ly, but when he smiles down at you, friendly-like, why, you wouldn't call the queen your cousin. Radcliffe knows he can't monkey with his uncle Frank, an' when he's by, butter wouldn't melt in that young un's mouth. But other times--my! You see, Mrs. Sherman is dead easy. She told me oncet, childern ought to be brought up 'scientifically.' Lord! She said they'd ought to be let _express their souls_, whatever she means by that. I told her I thought it was safer not to trust too much to the childern's souls, but to help along some occasional with your own--the sole of your slipper. It was then she said she 'abserlootly forbid' any one to touch Radcliffe. She wanted him 'guided by love alone.' Well, that's what he's been guided with, an', you can take it from me, love's made a hash of it, as it ushally does when it ain't mixed with a little common sense. You'd oughta see that fella's anticks when his mother, an' Lord Ronald, ain't