The two parents had been exchanging glances of something very like consternation, and of the mute inquiry on one side, ‘Were you aware of this sort of thing? and an emphatic shake of the head on the other. Then Sir Jasper’s voice exclaimed aloud—
‘Children, we hear every word you say, and are shocked at your impertinence and bad taste!’
There was a scatter. Wilfred and Valetta, who had been pinioning Gillian on either side by her dress, released her, and fled into the laurels that veiled the guinea-pigs; but their father’s long strides pursued them, and he gravely said—
‘I am very sorry to find this is your style of so-called wit!’
‘It was only chaff,’ said Valetta, the boldest in right of her girlhood.
‘Very improper chaff! I am the last person to object to harmless merriment; but you are both old enough to know that on these subjects such merriment is not harmless.’
‘Everybody does it,’ whined Valetta, beginning one of her crying fits.
‘I am sorry you have been among people who have led you to think so. No nicely-minded girl will do so, nor any brother who wishes to see his sisters refined, right-feeling women. Go in, Valetta—I can’t suffer this howling! Go, I say! Your mother will talk to you. Now, Wilfred, do you wish to see your sisters like your mother?’
‘They’ll never be that, if they live to a hundred!’
‘Do not you hinder it, then; and never let that insulting nickname pass your lips again.’