The eldest Miss Challoner--Nan, I think they called her--was just preparing for her own wedding, and Aunt Agatha often told me what a beautiful girl she was, and what a fine, intelligent creature the second sister Phillis seemed. She was engaged to a young clergyman at Hadleigh, and there had been some talk of a double wedding, only Nan's father-in-law, Mr. Mayne, of Longmead, had been rather cross at the notion, so Phillis's was to be postponed until the autumn. All the neighbourhood of Oldfield had been ringing with the strange exploits of these young ladies. One little fact had leaked out after another; it was said their own cousin, Sir Henry Challoner, of Gilsbank, had betrayed the secret, though he always vowed his wife had a hand, or rather a tongue, in the business; but anyhow, there was a fine nine days' gossip over the matter. It seemed that some time previously Mrs. Challoner and her three daughters had sustained severe losses, and the three girls, instead of losing courage, had put their shoulders to the wheel, and had actually set up as dressmakers at Hadleigh, carrying on their business in a most masterly fashion, until the unexpected return of their relative, Sir Harry Challoner, from Australia, with plenty of money at his disposal, broke up the dressmaking business, and reinstated them at Glen Cottage. A few of their friends had been much offended with them, but as it was understood that Lady Fitzroy had spoken warmly of their moral courage and perseverance, it had become the fashion to praise them. Aunt Agatha had often quoted them to me, saying she had never met more charming girls, and adding more than once how thoroughly she respected their independence, and of course in recalling the Challoners I thought I should have added my crowning argument. There was so much, too, that I longed to say in favour of my theory. The love of little children was very strong with me. I had often been pained as I walked through the streets at seeing tired children dragged along or shaken angrily by some coarse, uneducated nurse. It had always seemed rather a pitiful idea to me that children from their infancy should be in hourly contact with rough, menial natures. "Surely," I would say to myself, "the mother's place must be in her nursery; she can find no higher duty than this, to watch over her little ones; even if her position or rank hinder her constant supervision, why need she relegate her maternal duties to uneducated women? Are there no poor gentlewomen in the world who would gladly undertake such a work from very love, and who would refuse to believe for one moment they were losing caste in discharging one of the holiest and purest duties in life? "What an advantage to the children," I imagined myself saying in answer to some objection on Uncle Keith's part, never dreaming that all this eloquence would be silenced by masculine cunning.