Henriette’s eye was fixed, with increasing fondness, upon the Red House. There lay the callow brood marked out by Nature and man, for her ministrations. With infinite adroitness, Miss Temperley questioned her sister-in-law, by inference and suggestion, about the affairs of the household. Hadria evaded the attempt, but rejoiced, for reasons of her own, that it was made. She began to find the occupation diverting, and characteristically did not hesitate to allow her critic to form most alarming conclusions as to the state of matters at the Red House. She was pensive, and mild, and a little surprised when Miss Temperley, with a suppressed gasp, urged that the question was deeply serious. It amused Hadria to reproduce, for Henriette’s benefit, the theories regarding the treatment and training of children that she had found current among the mothers of the district.
Madame Bertaux happened to call during the afternoon, and that outspoken lady scoffed openly at these theories, declaring that women made idiots of themselves on behalf of their children, whom they preposterously ill-used with unflagging devotion.
“The moral training of young minds is such a problem,” said Henriette, after the visitor had left, “it must cause you many an anxious thought.”
Hadria arranged herself comfortably among cushions, and let every muscle relax.
“The boys are so young yet,” she said drowsily. “I have no doubt that will all come, later on.”
“But, my dear Hadria, unless they are trained now——”
“Oh, there is plenty of time!”
“Do you mean to say——?”
“Only what other people say. Nothing in the least original, I assure you. I see the folly and the inconvenience of that now. I have consulted hoary experience. I have sat reverently at the feet of old nurses. I have talked with mothers in the spirit of a disciple, and I have learnt, oh, so much!”
“Mothers are most anxious about the moral training of their little ones,” said Henriette, in some bewilderment.