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unfashionable is she not, to take such an interest in Melissa? Folks would have thought it most odd in me always to be fretting after my children. Not that I did, of course. St. Merryn would not have permitted it, even had my health allowed it. It simply was not the done thing. Of course, it would be better if Susan had two or three more. I cannot think why she has had only the one.”
    Daintry had been watching her sister and thinking she looked much healthier than when she and Melissa had arrived at Tuscombe Park more than six weeks before. Both had had colds then, and Susan’s had been particularly severe. Now she looked her old self, if a trifle self-conscious as a result of Lady St. Merryn’s tactless remark. Knowing Susan would dwell upon Sir Geoffrey’s disappointment that she had not yet given him a son if she were not diverted, Daintry patted her hand and said, “It is just like the old days, Susan. You do everything right the first time and thus need not try again. Melissa is an angel.”
    Susan smiled. “She is, isn’t she? Geoffrey says that Charlotte—for I must remember not to call her Charley; he detests such boyish nicknames—that she is a bad influence on Melissa, but I told him that dearest Melissa is much more likely to be a good influence on Charlotte. Don’t you think so?”
    Daintry nearly laughed aloud, but a certain look of anxiety in Susan’s eyes gave her pause and made her respond more diplomatically, “I suppose that if anyone can influence Charley, Melissa will. But Charley is a handful for anyone.”
    Lady Ophelia said, “A limb of Satan, that’s what the child is, and much the better for it, if you ask me. A female needs a great deal of spunk to get on in this world.”
    Susan said gently, “Manners will take her farther than spunk, ma’am. Geoffrey says she ought to have a sterner governess, and he said that even before Miss Pettibone left. He did not know she meant to go, of course, but he said—”
    “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Lady Ophelia snapped, “spare us from hearing every word Seacourt has said these past ten years. Do you say nothing for yourself anymore, gel? I declare, for six weeks all we have heard is what Geoffrey says, and from all I can tell he never does say anything worth listening to!”
    Flushing deeply, Susan bit her lip, looking suddenly very much like her daughter. “I-I’m sorry, Aunt Ophelia, I did not mean to offend you.”
    Daintry said gently, “You have not offended her, Susan. You know you have not. It is only that she prefers to hear what people really think, not what they think they ought to think, or what other people think they ought—Oh, dear,” she said with a comical look, “what a tangle my tongue makes of my thoughts! I shall never learn to explain them clearly, but you do understand what I mean, do you not?”
    “Oh, yes,” Susan said, sighing. “Your meaning is perfectly clear. It generally is, you know, even when you think you have got it garbled. I am the one who can never seem to make people understand what I mean. Perhaps that is why I so frequently quote others instead. I think, if you will all forgive me now, that I will go upstairs. Geoffrey and the others will be home soon, I believe, and I must begin to sort out Melissa’s and my things so that Rosemary can begin our packing.” She got to her feet as she spoke and was gone from the room almost before anyone else understood that she was going.
    When the door had shut behind her, Lady Ophelia said grimly, “Sorting clothes as though Rosemary were not a perfectly good maid! She will be darning stockings or fussing in the kitchen next. Susan is growing to be like you, Letty, all megrims and grievances. Thank heaven your daughters are different in their natures, or I should have become so dreadfully bored here that I must have set up my own household out of self-defense.”
    Daintry laughed. “You would never have done such a thing, ma’am. Fancy how frustrating it