And they snubbed Bunny--especially Nina. She said flippantly that it was “good for his soul.” Perhaps it was! Of all the young Maxwells, Nina was the most sure of herself. She went out more than the others--perhaps this was the cause of it. For people were wont to “take her up”; especially people with no daughters of their own; richer people than the Maxwells, who lived in larger houses, and owned cars. For Nina was such a jolly girl, and so competent; not as colourless as Gracie, nor over-shy and over-bold by fits and starts, like Ursula. She could cut sandwiches without spoiling the loaf, and play tennis and hockey, and drive a car, and manage sick animals; and could be useful in emergencies; and showed strong white teeth whenever she laughed--which was often--and she was never ill, and never unhappy, and “What _I_ like in that girl,” said old Colonel Mathers, to sum up, “is that there’s no nonsense about her!” A man was present when this remark was made, who gathered hostile stares by ejaculating that he could imagine nothing more ghastly and revolting--yes, he used these extreme terms--nothing more ghastly and revolting than a girl with no nonsense about her; and that the ideal girl is delicately hung about with nonsense as a Chinese temple with tiny silver bells. He went on for quite a long time in this vein; but as nobody argued with him, and as he was entirely wrong, and as he wasn’t regularly of Buckler’s Cross, but only an occasional visitor to the Mathers, his extraordinary opinions hardly mattered. Nina had been brought up as modern public-school girls often are, to a public-school-boy cult, that despised affectation, aimed at being hard and decent and straight; to have no use for sentiment. She had an aggressive manner of addressing her younger sisters and brothers as “my good lad,” “young woman,” “Tuppence,” “my poor brat”--(the first was usually Bunny and the last William)--but with Hal she was as bright marble changed to flowing water under the moonlight. Hal was a hero. Hal could do no wrong, or if he did (but he couldn’t) it was right. By Hal, her days began and her nights ended. She wound up her watch and set the time by Hal; her rigid standards and tastes were supple as silk to defer to his. She was his trumpeter, his prophet and his slave. Triumphantly, she compelled every one to own him a marvel, both for his separate acts and for his existence as a complete unit. He really _was_ quite a nice boy! Ursula and Grace and Lottie were just as fond of him as Nina, but they did not create such a dust about it. And Aunt Lavvy positively dimpled when the holidays drew near, and said she must get out her prettiest cap, because she had a sweetheart on the seas and his ship had been sighted ... that was Aunt Lavvy’s quaint way of talking.