men up in a country
house all the year round, and give them no interests in life outside
it--you won't give one woman in ten what she wants in that way."

"What _do_ they want then?"

"It is more what Cicely wants, isn't it? I don't know exactly, but I can
give a pretty shrewd guess. If you want to find out something about a
person, it isn't a bad thing to look at their parentage on both sides.
On one side she comes of a race of yokels."

"Oh, come, mother. The Birkets are----"

"I'm not talking about the Birkets, I'm talking about the Clintons. Poor
dear Mr. Clinton _is_ a yokel, for all his ancestry. If he had been
changed at birth and brought up a farm labourer, he wouldn't have had an
idea in his head above the average of them; he would only have had a
little more pluck. Any Birket's brains are worth six of any Clinton's in
the open market. Mrs. Clinton is a clever woman, although she doesn't
show it, and her dear, stupid old husband would smother the brains of
Minerva if he lived with her. You've only got to look at their children
to see where the Birket comes in. Dick is exactly like his father,
except that he is not a fool; Humphrey _is_ a fool to my thinking, but
not the same sort of fool; Walter--there's no need to speak of him;
Frank I don't know much about, but he isn't a yokel; Cicely simply
hasn't had a chance, but she'll take it fast enough when she gets it;
and as for the twins, they're as sharp as monkeys, for all their blue
eyes and sweet innocence."

"Well, what does it all lead to, mother?"

"It leads to this, Jim: I believe Cicely will be as happy living in the
country as most girls, but at Kencote she doesn't even get the pleasures
that a woman _can_ get out of the country; those are all kept for the
men. You _must_ take her about a bit. Take her to other houses and get
people to come here. Don't shut her up. Take her to London every now and
then, and try and let her see some of the sort of people that go to her
Uncle Herbert Birket's house. I believe she could hold her own with any
of them, and you'll be proud of her. Let her stir her mind up; she
doesn't know what's in it yet. Take her abroad. That always helps; even
I should have liked it, only your father didn't, and I wasn't keen
enough to let it make a disturbance. Give her her head; that's what it
comes to. She won't lose it again."

Jim thought for a long time while Mrs. Graham went on knitting.

"A woman wants some brightness in he