"Who did you say it to, darling?" asked Beatrix. "You told me that it was the very thing to bring it on. But I suppose you thought I was in a delicate state and must be humoured."
"Yes, it's all very well to treat it like that," said Lady Grafton. "But if it hadn't been for you it would certainly have been brought to a point then. They were both ready for it, and Ella Carruthers knew perfectly well that she had been asked down there to be proposed to. It was you and Caroline who stopped it, and I'm exceedingly annoyed with you, though I try not to show it."
"You don't try very hard, dear," said Caroline. "We expected it, too, and if we weren't quite ready for it at first we had got quite used to it by that time."
"We both showed it, too," said Beatrix. "We were as sweet to Ella as only we know how to be; and we took a great deal of pains to show darling Daddy that we were pleased with him. He knew that we knew all right, and were only waiting."
"Yes, and how did you show it? By hanging round him the whole time, and petting him as if you were children, instead of—"
"Instead of great girls of twenty-one and twenty-two," suggested Beatrix. "That's how we always have treated him, and always shall."
"Two married women," proceeded Lady Grafton.
"And one of them soon to become a mother," added Beatrix.
"Nobody was ever allowed to forget that," retorted Lady Grafton. "It was crammed down Ella's throat that she would be a step-grandmamma, and George could never move anywhere without you flopping about him and calling him 'Daddy darling.' There wasn't much 'Daddy darling' when you fell fatuously in love, and treated him as if he counted for about as much as old Jarvis. Then there was Caroline—"
"Oh, it's my turn now," said Caroline.