He seems quite used to the kind of wife he has got. He isn't at all anxious to change her. He hardly ever talks about her--even to me. That is manners. Even George has got that sort of manners, so that half these smart people don't realize that my father has got a wife, or ever had one! They might, if they liked, and after all, if Mother doesn't choose to know his friends, he cannot force her! She won't go out with him, though she makes no difficulties about our going. She likes us to go, as it opens our eyes and gives us chances. Her business is to see that we are clean and have nice hair not to disgrace him, and we don't, or he would soon chuck us. Lord Scilly always insists on our being asked to the picnics and parties they give. He likes us. He takes more notice of us than she does. I think he is a very lonely man, and quite glad of a little notice and attention even from a child. He is very observant too, I don't believe much goes past his eye. He thinks of everything from the racing point of view. Once when Lady Scilly and Ariadne were both standing on either side of Simon, receiving about an equal share of his attention, or so it seemed, Lord Scilly suddenly chuckled and said-- "I back the little 'un!" He always talks of and to Ariadne as if she were very young indeed, and it is the surest way to rile her. She never forgave Mrs. Ptomaine a notice of hers on the dresses at some Private View or other, when she alluded to Ariadne's frock as worn by "a very young girl." Lord Scilly thinks a girl ought to be able to stand chaff, and is always testing her. Ariadne had a birthday while we were at Whitby, and it fell on the day fixed for a picnic to Robin Hood's Bay. Simon sent her a present by the first post in the morning, a fan that he had written all the way to London for, in payment of some bet or other he had invented--I suppose he did not think it right to give an unmarried girl a present without some excuse like that?--and of course Mother and Aunt Gerty and I gave her something, and even George forked out a sovereign. That was all she expected, and not even that. However, all the way driving to the picnic, Lord Scilly kept telling her that he was going to give her something as well; I was sure he was only teasing her, for there are no shops worth mentioning in Robin Hood's Bay, so I advised her to brace herself for a disappointment. The moment he got to Robin Hood's Bay, he was off by himself, and away quite ten minutes, coming back with a showy paper parcel. At lunch he gave it her with a great deal of ceremony, so that everybody was looking. It was worse than I even had thought, a hideous china mug with "A Present for a Good Girl" on it in gilt letters. Ariadne has it now, only the servants have washed off the gilt lettering, using soda as they will. The baby was christened in it. But I am anticipating.