"It seems a reckless thing to promise," she murmured with a weak laugh. "No, not at all. I wouldn't let you do anything reckless." He spoke as a kindly grandfather might speak. "And now we have ten minutes left, and I want to talk to you about the little one--Antonia." His face softened, and after a slight struggle he yielded to a smile. "The truth is," he said, "that she's much my favorite. She's intelligent and honest, and the justest person of any age or sex that I ever knew in my life." He paused a second. "Perhaps it is because I'm fonder of her than of the other two, but it seems to me my sister is particularly unwise about Antonia." His mind went back to his parting the evening before with this small niece. He and his sister had been sitting on the piazza of the house they had taken at Southampton--at least she had taken it and he had paid for it. Only a few yards away the Atlantic, in one of its placid lakelike moods, was hissing slowly up and down on the sand. The struggle about a governess had been going on for several weeks. So far Mrs. Conway had won, for this was his last evening and none had been engaged. She had a wonderful method for dealing with her brother--a method to be commended to all weak people trying to get the maximum of interest and the minimum of control from stronger natures. She listened to everything he said as if she were wholly convinced by his words and intended to follow his advice to the last detail, and then she went away and did just what she had always meant to do. If he reproached her she looked at him wonderingly and said: "But, Anthony dear, I did agree with you at the time; but afterward, when I came to think----" Oh, how well he knew that dread phrase, "afterward, when I came to think!" By these methods she had managed to fend off action for three weeks, agreeing with him most cordially that the children ought to have a governess, but thinking, after he had gone to New York for the week, that it would be nice for them to take French lessons with that charming French lady in the village, or that perhaps the Abernathys' governess would come over for an hour a day---- And now on his last evening he had outmaneuvered her by announcing that he was interviewing candidates the next morning before he took his train, and would send her the best. "I'm sure it's very kind of you to take all this trouble, Tony," she said. "Don't send me anyone too hideous, will you?" "Griggs describes the young woman I have in mind as of pleasing appearance." "That means perfectly hideous." "You wouldn't want a prize beauty, would you?" "Certainly I would. I like to have lovely things about me. I suppose you think that's idiotic."