Her interest in persons as opposed to things quickened with the growth of her child. Posy became to her what a Chelsea shepherdess modelled by Roubillac was to Quinney—a bit of wonderful porcelain to be enshrined, a museum piece! The maternal instincts budded and bloomed the more bravely because conjugal emotion was denied full expression. She faced unflinchingly the conviction that Posy must marry and leave her. By that time Joe might be more ready to enjoy the fruits of labour. For the moment, then, her husband was pigeon-holed. He remained at the back of her mind, at the bottom of her heart, masked by that sprightly creature, his daughter. Posy accepted Susan’s love as a matter of course. *III* For her years—she was just fifteen—the girl exhibited a precocious intelligence and an essentially masculine shrewdness which distinguished her sire. In the girl’s presence Quinney observed no reticences. Invariably he discussed, with boyish zest and volubility, the day’s trafficking. Posy was not allowed to potter about the shop, but she ran at will in and out of the sanctuary, and she knew the value of every "gem" in it, and its history. Susan dared not interfere, but she prayed that Joe’s child might not be tempted to worship false gods. In an artless fashion she attempted to inculcate a taste for high romance. She read aloud _Ivanhoe_, and was much distressed by Posy’s comments upon certain aspects of the tale. "The men had a good time, but the women’s lives must have been deadly. I’m jolly glad that I’m a twen-center!" She continued fluently: "You have a rotten time, mummie." "My dear!" "But you do. I couldn’t stick your life!" She used slang freely, protesting, when rebuked, that she picked it up from the lips of her chum, Ethel Honeybun, who was exalted as the daughter of a Member of Parliament. Susan’s silence encouraged her to go on: "I want all the fun I can get. What fun have you had? You sew a lot, you read aloud to me, you take me to school—although I’m quite able to go alone—you order the meals, you are father’s slave." "I won’t have you say that!" "But it’s true." "I love your father. I married for love. I am happy and contented in my own home. I have no patience with these new-fangled notions about women’s rights and women’s wrongs." "Ethel says——" "I don’t wish to hear what Ethel says. Fun, indeed! Why, child, I’ve had you." "Was that fun?" She spoke seriously, fixing her mother with a pair of clear, grey eyes. "Some girls love dolls. Dolls rather bored me. Is it fun to mess about with a baby, wash it and dress it, and take it out in a pram? I call hockey fun." "You’ll lose a front tooth some fine day. That will be great fun." "Let’s be perfectly calm. I love talking things out. You don’t. I mean to say you try to hide your real self from me. Didn’t you think and talk as I do when you were a girl?" "Most certainly not!"