“Still Reform has been a great blessing. You know that, Father.”
“Publicly, I know it, Piers. Privately, I keep my own ideas. But there is Kate calling us, and I see the carriage is waiting. Thank God, Reform has nothing to do with homes. Wives and children are always the same. We don’t want them changed, even for the better.”
“You do not mean that?”
“Yes, I do,” said the Squire, positively. “My wife’s faults are very dear to me. Do you think I would like to miss her bits of tempers, and her unreasonableness? Even when she tries to get the better of me, I like it. I wouldn’t have her perfect, not if I could.”
Then Piers called for his son; but Harold could not be found. The Squire laughed. “He has run away,” he said. “The boy wants a holiday. I’ll take good care of him. He isn’t doing nothing; he is learning to catch a trout. Many a very clever man can’t catch a trout.” Then Piers asked his little daughters to come home with him; and Edith hid herself behind the ample skirts of her grandfather’s coat, and Maude lifted her arms to her grandmother, and snuggled herself into her bosom.
“Come, Piers, we shall have to go home alone,” Kate said.
“You have Katherine at home,” said the Squire.
And then Kate laughed. “Why, Father,” she said, “you speak as if Katherine was more than we ought to expect. Surely we may have one of our six children. The Duke thinks he has whole and sole right in Dick and John; and you have Harold and Edith and Maude.”