"Now, Giles!" reproachfully. "And there really was not the least need. I can hear her coming now along the passage. After all, she was only waiting till Jean arrived—keeping the tea nice and hot. My dear!—" to Jean. "I am astonished to see such a grown-up young lady. Jem never gave me that impression. Is it possible that you are only thirteen?"
"Sixteen last birthday!"
"Ah, that makes all the difference. I shall tell Jem, he really must leave off speaking of you as a 'little girl,' because it gives such a wrong impression. Why, I have actually been telling Prince not to bark, or frighten you. Yes: this is Prince—such a dear clever dog. I assure you, he understands every single thing that is said to him."
"One has to avoid talking secrets before Prince. He is apt to repeat them, on the sly."
"Now, Giles! What will Jean think of you? But really, the dear dog is wonderfully clever. He reasons like any human being. It is all nonsense to say that dogs can't reason, because I know Prince does. Now I am wondering whom Jean is supposed to be like. You are such a curious mixture, my dear. A little of your father, certainly, and a little of your mother! She was such a sweet woman! Ah, you have your grandmother Trevelyan's chin! And your grandmother Ingram's mouth! Only the way you shut your lips is like a Trevelyan. Your eyes are nobody's—"
"Unless Miss Trevelyan's own," murmured Giles.
"I mean, nobody that I have seen. Of course, one could trace them back, if one had lived long enough. Everything comes from somewhere," said Mrs. Trevelyan, with gentle positiveness and profundity. "But the way you use your eyes, dear, is quite like an Ingram—like one branch of the Ingram family, I mean. And you have the long Trevelyan hand—"
"Don't be astonished," Giles put in softly. "My aunt always appraises her guests in this fashion. Eyes, nose, mouth, worth so much apiece; total, so much: samples of doctrine of heredity."
"Now, Giles! But Jean understands, don't you, dear? Of course I like to know how much of you belongs to your own family. As for heredity—" the speaker folded dreamy hands, preparing for a gentle canter on her pet hobby-horse—"I do not see how anybody who knows anything of life can doubt it. Why, look at handwriting alone! Jean makes the tails of her g's and z's exactly like her old great-uncle Thomas—I mean, like his writing—and yet she never even saw him, and learnt from quite a different person. So you know that must have come down by inheritance."
"To be sure, there is Mrs. Wiggins—she is our great lady here, Jean, the wife of our squire—Mrs. Wiggins thinks a mother can do anything in the world with her children, can turn them out whatever shape she chooses. But that is a great deal more easily said than done: and Mrs. Wiggins only has one little girl. I always notice that it is the mothers with only one child who think that they can do exactly whatever they like with their children. If she had a dozen, she would have found by this time, that all the training in the world wouldn't make them all grow up alike. I have only had one as it happens, but I never could model Jem. He took his own shape, all I could do, dear fellow! And I am sure I don't want him to be different, for he is all one could wish. But still, you see what I mean. And I was one of thirteen, so I do know something about it. Not two of us turned out the same; and yet I'm sure there was not a grain of difference made in the way we were treated."