s
mother. So much I think I might claim; it is really very little
considering what it stands for. Cecily is permanently with us--I believe
she considers herself an intimate. I am very reasonable about lending
her to her aunts, but she takes no sort of advantage of my liberality;
she says she knows her duty is at home. She is growing into a firm and
solid English maiden lady, with a good colour and great decision of
character. That she always had.

I point out to John, when she takes our crumpets away from us, that she
gets it from him. I could never take away anybody's crumpets, merely
because they were indigestible, least of all my own parents'. She
has acquired a distinct affection for us, by some means best known
to herself; but I should have no objection to that if she would not
rearrange my bonnet-strings. That is a fond liberty to which I take
exception; but it is one thing to take exception and another to express
it.

Our daughter is with us, permanently with us. She declares that she
intends to be the prop of our declining years; she makes the statement
often, and always as if it were humorous. Nevertheless I sometimes
notice a spirit of inquiry, a note of investigation in her encounters
with the opposite sex that suggests an expectation not yet extinct
that another and perhaps a more appreciative Dacres Tottenham may flash
across her field of vision--alas, how improbable! Myself I can not
imagine why she should wish it; I have grown in my old age into a
perfect horror of cultivated young men; but if such a person should by
a miracle at any time appear, I think it is extremely improbable that I
will interfere on his behalf.

2. An Impossible Ideal.

Chapter 2.I.

To understand how we prized him, Dora Harris and I, it is necessary to
know Simla. I suppose people think of that place, if they ever do think
of it, as an agreeable retreat in the wilds of the Himalayas where
deodars and scandals grow, and where the Viceroy if he likes may take
off his decorations and go about in flannels. I know how useless it
would be to try to give a more faithful impression, and I will hold back
from the attempt as far as I can. Besides, my little story is itself
an explanation of Simla. Ingersoll Armour might have appeared almost
anywhere else without making social history. He came and bloomed among
us in the wilderness, and such and such things happened. It sounds too
rude a generalization to say that Simla is a