"You wouldn't if you were me and your father kept on saying, 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary,' and 'Mary had a little lamb.'"
"Fathers will do these cruel things. It's a way they have."
"Papa isn't cruel. Only he's so awfully fond of Mamma that he can't think about us. He doesn't mind me so much."
"Oh—he doesn't mind you so much?"
"No. It's Mark he can't stand."
"Who is Mark?"
"My brother. Mark is a soldier—Royal Artillery."
"Lucky Mark. I was to have been a soldier."
"Why weren't you?"
"My mother wouldn't have liked it. So I had to give it up."