"There is generally a spice of truth in Aunt Mary's sharp speeches, which is worth looking out for. You haven't told me what Dick says about it." "Oh, Dick takes the man's point of view, of course. Man remains a lovable creature till he's about seventy, or eighty or ninety. A woman has to leave off expecting to be loved when she's about thirty. He says Dad is as young as anybody, and he can't see what all the fuss is about." "I don't know that there is any fuss. Except with poor darling Barbara. She hates it." "Poor lamb! Of course she was looking forward to having her innings, with both of us married." "She has never liked Ella as much as we have." "I haven't noticed much difference. Of course she's jealous of her now. But that would calm down. I _should_ like Dad to have some more children. He'd be awfully sweet to them. Fancy! They'd be younger than mine." Beatrix then went on to talk about her baby that was coming. Barbara wrote to Bunting. He was to tell her what he thought. She should not object, she added, to hear Jimmy's view on the subject. Bunting was to tell Jimmy that she had thought over all he had said to her, and beyond a slight interest in a man who gave tickets for umbrellas at the Luxembourg Gallery, which she had subdued, she had behaved exactly as he would have wished since she had been back in Paris. Young George imparted this piece of information first, as he and Jimmy took a Sunday afternoon walk together. "She did have you on," he said. "You have to keep your eyes skinned when Barbara begins to pull your leg." "I can't say I care for that sort of thing much myself," said Jimmy. "Still, you must take people as you find them. If Barbara finds it amusing to play the fool in that way, I don't much mind. She is growing up into a very nice sort of girl and one can forgive her a few antics. I say, George, I shall have Feltham some day, and be fairly well off, I suppose. I don't suppose your Governor would object, would he, if anything were to come of it between Barbara and me?" "Anything were to come of what?" asked Bunting. "Oh, well, I should have thought you could have seen that Barbara is a good deal more to me than other girls. Of course I chaff her, and treat her in some ways as a kid, but--" "I should have thought that was how she treated you." "Well, it's our way of treating each other. I don't suppose she thinks of me as a kid any more than I do of her. I don't go as far as to say that she's gone on me, or anything of that sort. She's too young at present to be gone on anybody, however much she may lark and rot about it. And I haven't done anything to make her yet. I'm only asking you, _supposing_ it took me that way, and I was serious about it, I might be the sort of fellow your Governor wouldn't mind Barbara marrying?"