slight shock.)

"We can't stick it, you know, the way they're going on about her. The
fact is," said the tall youth, "we told Uncle Henry that, and he didn't
like it."

"You did, did you?"

"Yes. I know you'll say it isn't our business, but you see----"

"You see" (Winny explained), "we're so awfully fond of her."

Brodrick knew that he ought to tell the young rascals that their being
fond of her didn't make it any more their business. But he couldn't.

"What did you say to your Uncle Henry?"

He really wanted to know.

"Oh, we said it was all humbug about Jinny being neurotic. He's neurotic
himself and so he thinks everybody else is. He's got it regularly on the
brain."

(If, Brodrick thought, Henry could have heard him!)

"You can't think," said Winny, "how he bores us with it."

"I said he couldn't wonder if she _was_ neurotic, when you think what
she's got to stand. The boresomeness----" He left the idea to its own
immensity.

"Of what?" said Brodrick.

"Well, for one thing, you know, of living everlastingly with Gertrude."

Brodrick said, "Gertrude doesn't bore anybody."

"She doesn't bore _you_, Uncle Hugh, of course, because you're a man."

(Winny said that.)

"Then," said Eddy, "there's _us_. You know, we're an awful family for a
woman like Jinny to have married into. There isn't one of us fit to
black her boots. And I believe Uncle Henry thinks she wasn't made for
anything except to bring more of us into the world."

Brodrick's face displayed a fine flush.

"_You_'re all right, Uncle Hugh."

Brodrick lowered his eyelids in modest acceptance of this tribute.

"I keep forgetting you're one of them, because you married her."

"What else did you say to him?"

Eddy became excited. "Oh--I got in one before we left--I landed him
neatly. I asked him why on earth--if he thought she was neurotic--he let
her shut herself up for a whole year with that screaming kid, when any
fat nurse would have done the job as well? And why he let her break her
neck, running round after Aunt Mabel? I had him there."

"What did your Uncle say to that?" (Brodrick's voice was rather faint.)

"He didn't say anything. He couldn't--oh--well, he _did_ say my
impertinence was unendurable. And I said _his_ was, when you think what
Jinny is."

He meditated on it. He had become, suddenly, a grave and reverent
youth.

"We really came," Winny said, "to know whether Jinny _is_ going away?"

"She is going away," said