the same terms as he had already
used, and said repeatedly that he wouldn't have it. Then, as it was
plain that, whether he would or no, he already had had it, he rather
weakly asked the Rector what he would do if he were in his place.

"Well, Edward," said the Rector thoughtfully, "of course it is very
tiresome and all that, and Cicely ought not to have gone off in that way
without any warning. Still, we don't know what is going on in girls'
minds, do we? Cicely is a sensible girl enough, and I think when she
comes back if you were to leave it to Nina to find out what there was to
make her go off suddenly like that--well, how would that be, eh?"

"I can't understand it," said the Squire for the twentieth time. "Nina
knows no more about it all than I do. I can't help blaming her for that,
because----"

"O Edward," said Mrs. Beach, "whoever is to blame, it is not Nina.
Cicely is devoted to her, and so are the dear twins, for all their
general harum-scarumness."

"Well, I was going to say," said the Squire, who had been going to say
something quite different, "that Nina is very much upset about this. She
takes everything calmly enough, as you know, but she's a good mother to
her children--I will say that for her--and it's enough to upset any
woman when her daughter behaves to her in this monstrous fashion."

"How do you think it would be," asked the Rector, "if Nina were to go up
to London and have a talk with Cicely there?"

The Squire hummed and ha'd. "I don't see the sense of making more fuss
about it than has been made already," he said. "I told Nina this
morning, 'If you go posting off to London,' I said, 'everybody will
think that something dreadful has happened. Much better stop where you
are.'"

"If she wants to go," said Mrs. Beach, "I think it would be the very
best thing. She would bring Cicely to a right frame of mind--nobody
could do it better; and you would be at home, Edward, to see that
nothing was done here to complicate matters. I think that would be very
important, and nobody could do that but you."

"So you think it would be a good idea if I let Nina go up to her?" said
the Squire.

The Rector and Mrs. Beach both thought it would be a very good idea.

"Well," said the Squire, "I thought perhaps it would, but I hadn't quite
made up my mind about it. I thought we'd better wait, at any rate, till
we got an answer to my wire to Walter. And that reminds me--I'd better
be getting back. Well, goo