"But dear Aunt Agatha, she isn't cruel, and she isn't ugly," said Ben. "And I like her."
"That's your sweet nature," Lady Collum replied, "or her artfulness. And what about poor little Toby?" she resumed. "His home closed to him. I can't think what your father was about. Surely at sixty-three he might have continued to face life alone and then everything would be happy still, and poor little Toby not at the mercy of this heartless woman and you not driven out into the world to start 'The Hide and Seek.'"
"'Beck and Call,' aunt," Ben corrected. "And I haven't been driven out; I was glad to go."
"So you say," said Lady Collum. "But it's your kind heart. Anyway, it's that motherless child I'm thinking most about—poor Toby."
"But, aunt, dear," said Ben, "Toby is hardly ever at home. He's at Oxford until the vacation, and then he stays with friends. And he's six feet tall. It's far too long since you saw him. I assure you he's in no need of such sympathy."
"Poor child, poor child!" Lady Collum murmured. "It is dreadful when the cuckoo displaces the young meadow-pipits. I saw it on a film. Dreadful! My poor little Toby!"
"Well," said Ben, rising to go, and abandoning the struggle with preconceived ideas (always a stubborn one), "you'll send to me if you want any shopping done while you're down in the country, won't you?"
"Of course I will," said Aunt Agatha. "I'll do all I can for you. Let's see, what is the place called?—'Mind the Step'?"
"'Beck and Call,' aunt," said Ben.
"Of course. How funny I should have said 'Mind the Step.' And yet how natural!" she added, sighing deeply, "for I am always thinking about her. The step! What a tragedy for all of you! How could your father have done it! Well, you will mind her, won't you? They're all hard and all cunning. I know. I've read about them. And deceitful. And they are always saving and stealing, and stealing and saving, for their own children."