ou see, is _so_ young, _so_
inexperienced----"

"At all events, Tita is only a child."

"Tita! Is that her name?"

"A pet name, I fancy. Short for Titania; she is such a little
thing."

"Titania--Queen of the Fairies; I wonder if the original Titania's
father dealt in buttons! Is it buttons, or soap, or tar? You didn't
say," says Mrs. Bethune, turning to Lady Rylton.

"I really don't know--and as it _has_ to be trade, I can't see that
it matters," says Lady Rylton, frowning.

"Nothing matters, if you come to think of it," says Mrs. Bethune.
"Go on, Margaret--you were in the middle of a sermon; I dare say we
shall endure to the end."

"I was saying that Miss Bolton is only a child."

"She is seventeen. She told us about it last night at dinner. Gave
us month and day. It was very clever of her. We _ought_ to give her
birthday-gifts, don't you think? And yet you call her a child!"

"At seventeen, what else?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Margaret," says Lady Rylton pettishly; "and,
above all things, don't be old-fashioned. There is no such product
nowadays as a child of seventeen. There isn't _time_ for it. It has
gone out! The idea is entirely exploded. Perhaps there were children
aged seventeen long ago--one reads of them, I admit, but it is too
long ago for one to remember. Why, I was only eighteen when I
married your uncle."

"Pour uncle!" says Mrs. Bethune; her tone is full of feeling.

Lady Rylton accepts the feeling as grief for the uncle's death; but
Margaret, casting a swift glance at Mrs. Bethune, wonders if it was
meant for grief for the uncle's life--_with_ Lady Rylton.

"He was the ugliest man I ever saw, without exception," says Lady
Rylton placidly; "and I was never for a moment blind to the fact,
but he was well off at that time, and, of course, I married him. I
wasn't in love with him." She pauses, and makes a little apologetic
gesture with her fan and shoulders. "Horrid expression, isn't it?"
says she. "In love! So terribly _bourgeois_. It ought to be done
away with. However, to go on, you see how admirably my marriage
turned out. Not a hitch anywhere. Your poor dear uncle and I never
had a quarrel. I had only to express a wish, and it was gratified."

"Poor dear uncle was so clever," says Mrs. Bethune, with lowered
lids.

Again Margaret looks at her, but is hardly sure whether sarcasm is
really meant.

"Clever? Hardly, perhaps," says Lady Rylton meditatively. "Clever is
scarcely the word.