"You can make the most of the years that are left you," Mrs Carruthers replied crushingly, "but you can never catch up. If people realised that in their youth, they wouldn't waste their time as they do." "I wish you wouldn't be so depressing," he expostulated. "I'm not I'm merely lamenting your lost opportunities. I'm for early marriages, and big families, and bother the cost." "That's all very fine. But big families can't be launched indiscriminately, and flung on the State." "People are so prudent nowadays," she said; "they miss a lot of happiness. A jolly struggle is preferable to discreet luxury, with a will at the finish, leaving everything to the stranger or organised charities. I was one of fourteen, and there wasn't a jollier or a poorer home in the Colony." She laughed, and thrust forward a small, misshapen foot. "That comes of having to wear my elder sister's outgrown shoes. But if I had had my footgear made for me, my feet would probably have been flat and large; and the sight of an incipient bunion brings back glorious memories of childhood's makeshifts, and the joy of trying on coveted and outgrown clothes. We weren't proud as children. And the bread and butter and onions we ate for supper tasted lots better than the eight-o'clock dinner I take now with Dickie." She sighed deeply, and became suddenly grave. "All the rest have big families themselves," she added wistfully. "I'm just out of it." "Children are mixed blessings," he said consolingly. "They aren't," she asserted. "They give one the satisfied feeling of carrying on. When we haven't children, we just finish with our own little lives." She sat up and smiled at him with cheerful encouragement. "I have invited a girl for you this evening. She is young and fresh and--" "Oh, don't!" he interposed hastily. "She is quite nice to look at," Mrs Carruthers resumed, not heeding his interruption. "She comes of good stock, and is amiable, and not too clever. She dances well, and plays games well, and is thoroughly domesticated,--an orphan, poor,--the eldest of a family of seven." "Ye gods!" he murmured. "Why didn't you invite the other six?" "They aren't out," replied Mrs Carruthers. He repressed a desire to smile. "It is my particular wish that you pay her special attention," she continued calmly, "with a view to an early and suitable marriage. Now don't make up your mind against it straightway. It will be an admirable thing for you, and I've set my heart on it." He laughed outright. "Oh, you woman!" he said. "You inveterate matchmaker! If your girl is all you profess, why can't you find her some one younger and more human? As my wife, she would have the devil of a time--you know she would." "I think you are rather severe in your judgment of yourself," she returned imperturbably. "You are quite agreeable. And you could provide handsomely for a woman, and--other things."