"Sensible woman, your Miss Jessop," he said.
"Oh, I don't know. She was very decided, certainly, and easy in her ways. More so than I quite like in a trained nurse. I will say for her, though, that the out-of-doors idea was hers. Though father was quite alarmed about it."
"That's what I say. Father doesn't understand her."
"Oh, Elly, how can you? Every one says there never were two people so suited to each other. There's not one wish of father's she doesn't carry out, and never has been."
"I don't say not," he agreed, "but that merely shows what a good, clever wife she is. That doesn't say he understands her. He certainly never understood me, I know; Uncle John didn't either."
"But you were always—always—queer, you know, Elly," she explained deprecatingly.
"Was I?" he questioned lightly. "Mamma understood me, all the same. So perhaps she's 'queer,' too."
"Nonsense," Wilhelmina said briefly. "Mamma is like anybody else, only a great deal cleverer."
"Maybe, maybe," he repeated thoughtfully. "But she always gives me the impression of having something up her sleeve. She said a strange thing to me after my little girls—the twins, you know—were born. She was holding them out in the orange grove, and saying such sweet things to Maddelina, and then she turned to me suddenly and said,
"'Have I been a good mother to you, Elliot?'