I assure
you, with one that has lost its what-do-you-call it." He kissed Nanda
with a friendly peck, then, more completely aware, had a straighter
apprehension for Tishy. "My dear child, YOU seem to have lost something,
though I'll say for you that one doesn't miss it."

Mrs. Grendon looked from him to Nanda. "Does he mean anything very
nasty? I can only understand you when Nanda explains," she returned
to Harold. "In fact there's scarcely anything I understand except
when Nanda explains. It's too dreadful her being away so much now with
strange people, whom I'm sure she can't begin to do for what she does
for me; it makes me miss her all round. And the only thing I've come
across that she CAN'T explain," Tishy bunched straight at her friend,
"is what on earth she's doing there."

"Why she's working Mr. Longdon, like a good fine girl," Harold said;
"like a good true daughter and even, though she doesn't love me nearly
so much as I love HER, I will say, like a good true sister. I'm bound
to tell you, my dear Tishy," he went on, "that I think it awfully happy,
with the trend of manners, for any really nice young thing to be a bit
lost to sight. London, upon my honour, is quite too awful for girls, and
any big house in the country is as much worse--with the promiscuities
and opportunities and all that--as you know for yourselves. _I_ know
some places," Harold declared, "where, if I had any girls, I'd see 'em
shot before I'd take 'em."

"Oh you know too much, my dear boy!" Vanderbank remarked with
commiseration.

"Ah my brave old Van," the youth returned, "don't speak as if YOU had
illusions. I know," he pursued to the ladies, "just where some of Van's
must have perished, and some of the places I've in mind are just where
he has left his tracks. A man must be wedded to sweet superstitions
not nowadays to HAVE to open his eyes. Nanda love," he benevolently
concluded, "stay where you are. So at least I shan't blush for you. That
you've the good fortune to have reached your time of life with so little
injury to your innocence makes you a case by yourself, of which we
must recognise the claims. If Tishy can't make you gasp, that's nothing
against you nor against HER--Tishy comes of one of the few innocent
English families that are left. Yes, you may all cry 'Oho!'--but I defy
you to name me say five, or at most seven, in which some awful thing or
other hasn't happened. Of course ours is one, and Tishy's is one, and
Van's