Criticism that is right in my child-in-law D (male) is reprehensible and altogether out of the question in my other child-in-law E (female). The blame for idiotic partiality is transferred from my child-in-law D to C (one of the family). In fact, to put it still more simply, I don’t mind my son-in-law criticising my daughter up to a certain point, but if my daughter-in-law begins to criticise my son, I shall probably wring her neck. Constance has no idea how sensitive Tom is, and the way he idealises her is ridiculous. He told me how impossible it was to get her to spare herself at all, she was always thinking of others. Just what Robert said about Anne, but I had different methods of dealing with them. “Stuff and nonsense,” I said to my son-in-law, “Anne is not so delicate as you think, she won’t mind what you say in the least; it is not shrinking that makes her silent, it is because she has not made up her mind what she intends to do. If you do not want to go to the South of France while your partner is ill, don’t go. Anne travelled about alone for three years before you knew her.” I did not mind if he thought me a heartless pig; he was not mine to lose, and Anne, of course, belonged to herself as she always had. But Tom was mine and Constance’s, and the only way in which I could keep my share in him was to make her also mine. We could not pull him in two, and she would pull strongest, so I must change my metaphor and regard her as a growth upon Tom. I could not operate on her, so she must just come with him. Therefore, when he made the same remark about her as Robert made about Anne, I assured him that all really good women worked too hard, and that I had been thinking perhaps a little motor would save her running about so much; would she like one as a Christmas present? Of course, Constance felt that Tom could be safely trusted for week-ends with such a parent. Besides, I never asked him questions about her (to be truthful I wasn’t interested), and I always sent back fowls, and asparagus, and hats, and other useful articles, according to the length of time she let me have him. I know that Robert would have liked me to show a little more nice feeling about Anne; indeed, once, I was obliged to be quite frank about it. “Anne and I understand each other very well,” I told him, “and you cannot have everything. If I showed nice feeling she would not like it, and although you would be the gainer by her annoyance----” “I don’t see that,” he interrupted. “How could I be the gainer by Anne’s annoyance?”