"But you are yearning to help Blathwayte to look after them, so why shouldn't you have helped Wildacre to look after them? I don't see where the difference comes in. And, besides, they mightn't have been there."
"I don't see any necessity to go into that," said Annabel, doing the heavy sister to perfection.
"Nor do I. But it was you who went into it, if you remember, not I. You dragged those young people into the discussion, so to speak, by the hair of their heads."
Annabel carried the war into the enemy's camp. "And where should you have been if I had married Francis Wildacre, I should like to know?" she asked triumphantly.
"Exactly where I am now. There was no talk of my marrying Wildacre."
"And all alone, with no one to look after you!"
"Pardon me, my dear Annabel, but you are confusing dates. I should have been all right now, because you would be a widow, and would be living here with me, and with a young niece and nephew to whom I should be devoted. Where I should have come short would have been in the intervening twenty years between your supposititious marriage with Wildacre and the present time."
Like all typical elder sisters, Annabel loved to be poked fun at by a younger brother. That she never saw the point of my feeble jokes in nowise lessened her admiration of them; her faith in their excellence was a perfect faith, being in truth the evidence of things not seen.
"I think you'd have made a very nice uncle, Reggie. I've noticed that good brothers make good uncles, just as good sons make good husbands. I think it is very interesting to notice little things like that."
"And instructive," I added; "you've forgotten the instructiveness."