She was a clever woman, who had won through a good deal of stress and difficulty, with a husband she adored and a son she worshipped, both of whom had been what is generally described as “peculiar tempered.” If she had cared for either of them less, the home would have been pandemonium. Fortunately for all concerned, her love had stood every test, and her natural cleverness had been content to expend itself on tactfully managing her male belongings. The people who had only a superficial insight, and were at considerable pains to pity her, might have saved their sympathy. Mrs Blake was eminently no object for condolence. A clever woman must have some outlet for her cleverness, and why not direct it toward managing two interesting, if difficult, specimens of the male sex? If she truly loves them, what could be more engrossing, and what reward more enthralling, than the intervals of devotion and tenderness won by consummate tact? Certainly, these had never been missing; both men, below the surface awkwardness and obstinacy, unswervingly returned her devotion. It was the other members of the household who suffered generally, and felt aggrieved at the male belongings with which they had been saddled. It was in allusion to this that Mrs Blake now remarked: “Kathleen and Doreen would not quarrel with you, if you spared them your sarcasms.” “Kathleen and Doreen are silly little fools,” coldly. “It is only that they don’t understand you,” she told him, “and you must remember they are very young. Of course you often aggravate them purposely, when you are not pointedly indifferent to their very existence, and they are quite justified in resenting it.” “Then why not let well alone, and go to Ireland without me?” “This dance is to be a sort of family affair, and I want you to be present.” He shrugged his shoulders, and his thin, clever face broke into a half-satirical smile; “You don’t want me to aggravate the girls with my presence, but you want me to be there. Couldn’t I please you best by promising to be there in spirit?” “Why don’t you want to come?” ignoring his flippant air. “Why do you want to go?” he retaliated. “We have been absent so long and I must bring the girls back to town for the winter. It is a good opportunity to put in two months there.” “My dear mother, Mourne Lodge has got on so nicely without us for three years, it will quite safely manage to exist until July. I dislike rushing about needlessly. In an age of exclamation stops and interrogation marks, couldn’t you support me in trying to be a semicolon for a little while?” She smiled, but refused to humour him. “You are to come, Lawrie,” she said, getting up, “and you are to try and be nice to the girls. Perhaps if you were to forget they were sisters?” significantly. “They will not allow me to. No one but sisters would go out of their way to be so persistently aggravating.” “Except a brother,” with a little smile.