discover why her hair was so very light and her eyebrows were so very
dark. "And you say they all wear spectacles. Can't they see without?"

Mrs. Windsor looked rather distractedly towards Lady Locke, who was
reading a military article in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ with deep
attention.

"They can see a little without, I suppose, but not very much."

"Then are they blind?"

"No, only short-sighted. And then their father is a clergyman, you know,
and clergymen generally wear spectacles. So perhaps they inherit it."

"What! the spectacles?"

"No, the--I mean they may require to wear spectacles because their
father did before them. It is often so. But you are too young to
understand heredity."

"I _can_ understand things, Cousin Betty," said the boy rather
severely.

"That's right. Well now, go and look out of the window. Look, there is a
mill with the wheel turning, and a pond with a boat on it. What a dear
little boat!"

Tommy went, obediently, but a little disdainfully, and Mrs. Windsor sank
back in her seat feeling quite worn out. She could cope better with the
wits of a wit than with the wits of a child. She began to wish that
Tommy was not going to make a part of the Surrey week. If he did not
take a fancy to the curate's children after all, he would be thrown upon
her hands. The prospect was rather terrible. However, she determined not
to dwell upon it. It was no use to meet a possible trouble half way. She
closed her eyes, and wondered vaguely who the great Athanasius had
really been till the train slowed down--it seemed to have been slowing
down steadily all the way from Waterloo--and they drew up beside the
platform at Dorking. Then Tommy was packed with his mother's maid into
the governess cart with the fat white pony, which enchanted him to
madness, and Lady Locke and Mrs. Windsor were driven away in the landau
towards "The Retreat."

The day was radiantly fine, and very hot. The hedgerows were rather
dusty, and the air was dim with a delicious haze that threw an
atmosphere of enchantment round even the most commonplace objects.
Dorking looked, as it always does, solid, serene, and cheerful, the
beau-ideal of a prosperous country town, well-fed, well-groomed,
well-favoured. Some of the shopkeepers were standing at their doors in
their shirt-sleeves taking the air. The errand-boys whistled
boisterously as they went about their business, and the butcher carts
dashed hither and thither with their usual