onsequence of which was that Fenwick--being, as Sally afterwards
phrased it, "too sharp by half"--looked up suddenly from his reverie,
and said, as he finished rolling his cigarette, "What won't our
daughter?"

The pleasure that struck through his wife's heart was audible in her
voice as she caught it up. "Our daughter won't be a silly inquisitive
little puss-cat, darling. It only worries you, and does no good."
And he replied to her, as she came behind him and stood with an
appreciative side-face against his, with a semi-apology for the phrase
"daughter," and allowed the rest of what they were speaking of to
lapse.

"I called her it for the pleasure of saying it," said he. "It sounded
so nice!" And then he knew that her kiss was approval, but of course
had no conception of its thoroughness. For her part, she hardly dared
to think of the strangeness of the position; she could only rejoice
at its outcome.

After that it became so natural to him to speak of Sally as "our
daughter" that often enough new acquaintances misconceived her relation
to him, and had a shrewd insight that Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick must have
been married very young. Once some visitors--a lady with one married
daughter and two single ones--were so powerfully impressed with Sally's
resemblance to her supposed parent that three-fourths of them went
unconvinced away, in spite of the efforts of the whole household to
remove the error. The odd fourth was supposed to have carried away
corrective information. "I got the flat one, with the elbows, in
a quiet corner," said Sally, "and told her Jeremiah was only step.
Because they all shouted at once, so it was impossible to make them
hear in a lump."

Mistakes of this sort, occurring frequently, reacted on Mr. and Mrs.
Fenwick, who found in them a constant support and justification for
the theory that Sally was really the daughter of both, while admitting
intellectual rejection of it to be plausible to commonplace minds. They
themselves got on a higher level, where _ex-post-facto_ parentages
were possible. Causes might have miscarried, but results having turned
out all right, it would never do to be too critical about antecedents.
Anyhow, Sally was _going to be_ our daughter, whether she _was_ or not.

Rosalind always found a curious consolation in the reflection that,
however bewildering the position might be, she had it all to herself.
This was entirely apart from her desire to keep Fenwick in ignorance
o