"But there's no fool like an old fool," quoth Nicky.
"What a delightful creature our charming niece Adelaide must be, from Mary's account," said Grizzy; "only I can't conceive how her eyes come to be black. I'm sure there's not a black eye amongst us. The Kilnacroish family are black, to be sure; and Kilnacroish's great-grandmother was first cousin, once removed, to our grandfather's aunt, by our mother's side. It's wonderful the length that resemblances run in some old families; and I really can't account for our niece Adelaide's black eyes naturally any other way than just through the Kilnacroish family; for I'm quite convinced it's from us she takes them,—children always take their eyes from their father's side; everybody knows that Becky's, and Bella's, and Baby's are all as like their poor father's as they can stare."
"There's no accounting for the varieties of the human species," said
Jacky.
"And like's an ill mark," observed Nicky.
"And only think of her being so much taller than Mary, and twins! I declare it's wonderful—I should have thought, indeed I never doubted, that they would have been exactly the same size. And such a beautiful colour too, when we used to think Mary rather pale; it's very unaccountable!"
"You forget," said Jacky, who had not forgot the insult offered to her nursing system eighteen years before; "you forget that I always predicted what would happen."
"I never knew any good come of change," said Nicky.
"I'm sure that's very true," rejoined Grizzy; "and we have great reason to thank our stars that Mary is not a perfect dwarf; which I really thought she would have been for long, till she took a shooting,—summer was a year."
"But she'll shoot no more," said Jacky, with a shake of the head that might have vied with Jove's imperial nod; "England's not the place for shooting."
"The Englishwomen are all poor droichs," said Nicky, who had seen three in the course of her life.