"Oh, that has got nothing to do with it."
"Everything rather. You are analyzing them. You are exalting an old woman who has been unkind to you at the expense of the children who love you!"
"Ah, she analyzes them because she too loves them," says Joyce. "It is easy to pick faults in those who have a real hold upon our hearts. For the rest—it doesn't concern us how the world regards them."
"It sounds as if it ought to read the other way round," says Monkton.
"No, no. To love is to see faults, not to be blind to them. The old reading is wrong," says Joyce.
"You are unfair, Freddy," declares his wife with dignity; "I would not decry the children. I am only a little nervous as to their reception. When I know that your father and mother are prepared to receive them as my children, I know they will get but little mercy at their hands."
"That speech isn't like you," says Monkton, "but it is impossible to blame you for it."
"They are the dearest children in the world," says Joyce. "Don't think of them. They must succeed. Let them alone to fight their own battles."
"You may certainly depend upon Tommy," says his father. "For any emergency that calls for fists and heels, where battle, murder and sudden death are to be looked for, Tommy will be all there."
"Oh! I do hope he will be good," says his mother, half amused, but plainly half terrified as well.