Mrs. Brookenham, who had many talents, had none perhaps that she oftener found useful than that of listening with the appearance of being fairly hypnotised. It was the way she listened to her housekeeper at their regular morning conference, and if the rejoinder ensuing upon it frequently appeared to have nothing to do with her manner this was a puzzle for her interlocutor alone. “Oh of course I know your theory, dear Jane, and I dare say it’s very charming and old-fashioned and, if you like, aristocratic, in a frowsy foolish old way--though even upon that, at the same time, there would be something too to be said. But I can only congratulate you on finding it more workable than there can be any question of MY finding it. If you’re all armed for the sacrifices you speak of I simply am not. I don’t think I’m quite a monster, but I don’t pretend to be a saint. I’m an English wife and an English mother--I live in the mixed English world. My daughter, at any rate, is just my daughter, I thank my stars, and one of a good English bunch: she’s not the unique niece of my dead Italian husband, nor doubtless either, in spite of her excellent birth, of a lineage, like Aggie’s, so very tremendous. I’ve my life to lead and she’s a part of it. Sugar?” she wound up on a still softer note as she handed the cup of tea. “Never! Well, with ME” said the Duchess with spirit, “she would be all.” “‘All’ is soon said! Life is composed of many things,” Mrs. Brookenham gently rang out--“of such mingled intertwisted strands!” Then still with the silver bell, “Don’t you really think Tishy nice?” she asked. “I think little girls should live with little girls and young femmes du monde so immensely initiated should--well,” said the Duchess with a toss of her head, “let them alone. What do they want of them ‘at all at all’?” “Well, my dear, if Tishy strikes you as ‘initiated’ all one can ask is ‘Initiated into what?’ I should as soon think of applying such a term to a little shivering shorn lamb. Is it your theory,” Mrs. Brookenham pursued, “that our unfortunate unmarried daughters are to have no intelligent friends?” “Unfortunate indeed,” cried the Duchess, “precisely BECAUSE they’re unmarried, and unmarried, if you don’t mind my saying so, a good deal because they’re unmarriageable. Men, after all, the nice ones--by which I mean the possible ones--are not on the lookout for little brides whose usual associates are so up to snuff. It’s not their idea that the girls they marry shall already have been pitchforked--by talk and contacts and visits and newspapers and by the way the poor creatures rush about and all the extraordinary things they do--quite into EVERYTHING. A girl’s most intelligent friend is her mother--or the relative acting as such. Perhaps you consider that Tishy takes your place!”