"Oh, my dear--the fuss he's made about his girls! I've had it all out with him. He thinks he's been actuated solely by the most unselfish desire for their happiness, when all the time he's just been hating it because he can't keep them forever circling round himself." "I think you're very unfair. He does love them awfully, and of course he hates losing them. But the way he's behaved about Caroline shows that he hasn't been thinking of what he wants himself. I feel very sorry for him now. He has to begin all over again, and he isn't a bit like an old man, who can sit down and wait for the end. He's as young in his mind and in his tastes as if he were twenty years younger." "Yes, he's more of a baby than most men of his age, and that's saying a good deal. He's kept himself fit too. Oh, I don't deny that it has been a good thing for him to have his children to play with. No doubt it has kept him out of a lot of mischief. And I'm rather sorry for him losing them, too, though I don't tell him so. He's too apt to be sorry for himself; and after all, he's got to put up with it, like everybody else." "How unfeeling you are! I'm not going to hear my dear Mr. Grafton criticised in that way without protesting. If he had really been selfish, as most men are, he would just have gone on amusing himself and hardly have missed the girls at all. It's no discredit to him that he has been so happy in his home that he can't bear it to be broken up." "I suppose he was grousing and grumbling about that when you went out for a walk this afternoon." Ella wondered how she knew that they had been out for a walk, but did not ask her. "He wasn't," she said indignantly. "You say you like him, and you're always trying to make him out a poor weak creature with no backbone at all. I think he's a very wise man, and a good one too. I love him for loving his family as much as he does." "Oh, well, my dear, if you love him, I don't want anything better. I told him the other day he ought to marry again, now the time has come for him to lose his girls. He made his first wife happy enough, and he'd make you. He's no longer young, but he isn't old either, and won't be for a long time to come. He's a husband you could be proud of, and he'd never let you down." "Thanks for the offer. I'll wait till he makes it himself, and then I'll think about it. But please don't make mischief, or try to manage. As a matter of fact, I think the idea would rather shock him, and it isn't one that appeals to me, or I shouldn't talk about it as I'm doing now. He has been awfully sweet to me, and treated me very much like the rest. It has been just what I've wanted, for I was lonely till they came here. I'm going to keep it up, and help him to get over _his_ bad time--dear Mr. Grafton! If you go spreading _those_ ideas about you'll make it difficult for me. So please don't." "I should be a precious fool if I did," said Lady Grafton enigmatically. CHAPTER XX CAROLINE'S HOME-COMING