"Her husband need be rich," she soliloquised as she descended the stairs.
Claud was seated in her morning-room, his youngest niece upon his knee. This fascinating person, whose age was three, was confiding to her uncle the somewhat unlooked-for fact that she was a policeman, and intended to take him that moment to prison. If he resisted, instant death must be his portion. Two plump white fists were clenched in his faultless shirt-collar, and he hailed his sister's entrance with a whoop of relief.
"Just in time, Mab! My last hour had come," he cried, as he relegated the zealous arm of the law to the hearth-rug, stood up, and shook himself. "Why do children invariably select the tragedy and not the comedy of life for their games? I should think, Mab, for once that you and I assisted at a wedding we took part in a hundred executions—ay, leading parts, too; the bitterness of death ought to be past for us two."
"Have you been taking care of this monkey?" said Mab, rubbing her face lovingly against his arm. "What a comfort you are to have in the house, dear boy; far more useful than my visitor upstairs, for instance. She is not handy with children, to say the least of it."
"She has not had my long apprenticeship," returned Claud, good-humoredly. "Hallo, Kathleen mavourneen, I draw the line at the poker, young lady."
"Baby, be good," said baby's mother, as her daughter was reluctantly induced to part with her weapon. "You make excuses for Elsa, Claud; why don't you admit that you are as much disappointed in her as I am?"
"Because I am not at all disappointed in her. You know, after the first few days, she never attracted me in the least."
"I know. I used to wonder why. Now I give you credit for much discrimination. She will never make a good wife."
"I say, that is going too far, Mab. She may develop—I hope—" he paused, and his voice took an inflection of deep feeling—"I devoutly hope she may."
"Why?"