"Oh, Peggy, of course I meant it."
"Yes, but you didn't make it sound so."
"Peggy," said Majendie, "you're a terribly observant little person."
"She's a little person who sometimes observes all wrong."
"No, mummy, I don't. You never talk to daddy like you talk to me."
"You're a little girl, dear, and daddy's a big grown-up man."
"That's not what I mean, though. You've got a grown-up voice for me, too. I don't mean your grown-up voice. I mean, mummy, you talk to daddy as if—as if you hadn't known him a very long time. And you talk to me as if you'd known me—oh, ever so long. Have you known me longer than you've known daddy?"
Majendie gazed with feigned abstraction at the shoulder of the hill visible through the branches of the trees.
"Bless you, sweetheart, I knew daddy long before you were ever thought of."
"When was I thought of, mummy?"