d and set adrift, the haven of its grandmother and its Aunt
Emma and its Aunt Alice certainly seemed providential. I had absolutely
no cause for anxiety, as I often told people, wondering that I did
not feel a little all the same. Nothing, I knew, could exceed the
conscientious devotion of all three Farnham ladies to the child. She
would appear upon their somewhat barren horizon as a new and interesting
duty, and the small additional income she also represented would be
almost nominal compensation for the care she would receive. They were
excellent persons of the kind that talk about matins and vespers, and
attend both. They helped little charities and gave little teas,
and wrote little notes, and made deprecating allowance for the
eccentricities of their titled or moneyed acquaintances. They were the
subdued, smiling, unimaginatively dressed women on a small definite
income that you meet at every rectory garden-party in the country, a
little snobbish, a little priggish, wholly conventional, but apart from
these weaknesses, sound and simple and dignified, managing their two
small servants with a display of the most exact traditions, and keeping
a somewhat vague and belated but constant eye upon the doings of their
country as chronicled in a bi-weekly paper. They were all immensely
interested in royalty, and would read paragraphs aloud to each other
about how the Princess Beatrice or the Princess Maud had opened a fancy
bazaar, looking remarkably well in plain grey poplin trimmed with Irish
lace--an industry which, as is well known, the Royal Family has set its
heart on rehabilitating. Upon which Mrs. Farnham's comment invariably
would be, 'How thoughtful of them, dear!' and Alice would usually say,
'Well, if I were a princess, I should like something nicer than plain
grey poplin.' Alice, being the youngest, was not always expected to
think before she spoke. Alice painted in water-colours, but Emma was
supposed to have the most common sense.

They took turns in writing to us with the greatest regularity about
Cecily; only once, I think, did they miss the weekly mail, and that was
when she threatened diphtheria and they thought we had better be kept
in ignorance. The kind and affectionate terms of these letters never
altered except with the facts they described--teething, creeping,
measles, cheeks growing round and rosy, all were conveyed in the same
smooth, pat, and proper phrases, so absolutely empty of any glimpse
of t