Blackpool one. But Fay met both of them,
for she spent a week-end with each, with Hugo, after she was married."

"Well, and what did she say?"

Jan laughed and sighed: "She said--you remember how Fay could say the
severest things in the softest, gentlest voice--that 'for social
purposes they were impossible, but they were doubtless excellent and
worthy of all esteem and that they were exactly suited to the _milieu_
in which they lived.'"

"And where do they live?"

"One lives at Blackpool--she's married to ... I forget exactly what he
is--but it's something to do with letting houses. They're quite well off
and all her towels had crochet lace at the ends. Fay was much impressed
by this, as it scratched her nose. They also gave you 'doylies' at
afternoon tea and no servant ever came into the room without knocking."

"Any children?"

"Yes, three."

"And the other sister?"

"She lives at Poulton-le-Fylde, and her husband had to do with a
newspaper syndicate. Quite amusing he was, Fay says, but very shaky as
to the letter 'H.'"

"Would they like the children?"

"They might, for they've none of their own, but they certainly wouldn't
take them unless they were paid for, as they were not well off. They
were rather down on the Blackpool sister, Fay said, for extravagance and
general swank."

"What about the grandparents?"

"In Guernsey? They're quite nice old people, I believe, but
curiously--of course I'm quoting Fay--comatose and uninterested in
things, 'behindhand with the world,' she said. They thought Hugo very
wonderful, and seemed rather afraid of him. What he has told them lately
I don't know. He wrote very seldom, they said; but _I've_ written to
them, saying I've got the children and where we shall be. If they
express a wish to see the children I'll ask them to Wren's End. If, as
would be quite reasonable, they say it's too far to come--they're old
people, you know--I suppose one of us would need to take them over to
Guernsey for a visit. I do so want to do the right thing all round, and
then they can't say I've kept the children away from their father's
relations."

"Scotch people always think such a lot about relations," Meg grumbled.
"I should leave them to stew in their own juice. Why should you bother
about them if he doesn't?"

"They're all quite respectable, decent folk, you know, though they
mayn't be our kind. The father, I fancy, failed in business after he
came back from India. Fay said