Again the Bishop had to hide a smile. "Well, don't you?"
Joan stared. "I am so stupid, godfather. I don't understand you."
"Why, sometimes I think every woman is a fighting patriot, all day and every day. Don't you buckle on your armor every morning and war with the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-maker to defend your little country in this direction and that? Every family is a small state to be governed. Don't you know that?"
Joan's face fell. "Godfather, I don't like that idea," she burst out. "There is nothing glorious in what I am doing. Of course I love helping father, but the dear children and the tradesfolk almost fray me out sometimes. I only war in the way you describe because I know I ought to."
"That's a good enough and glorious enough reason," said the Bishop. "Don't you fret, my little girl. If the chance of any kind of glory ever comes your way—and your cruel old godfather prays it never may—you won't find yourself ill prepared to meet it, if you take care of the peace duties and let the glory take care of itself."
"Yes," said Joan, humbly, "I will try. I am trying to talk better than I did, as you wrote to me I should. Do you think I have improved at all? I know I did sometimes talk to beat the band."
"Well, the last remark was not wholly guiltless," laughed the Bishop. "But never mind. You are doing very well in all ways. What a sweet-tempered child you are making of Teddy! Hear the boy now."
"Bumble-peg, bumble-peg," Teddy was calling to Robert. "Yeth, I want to play it. Oh, come an' leth play bumble-peg. What ith it?"
"He gets that from you, dear godfather," said Joan. "I don't believe there's another bishop in the world that would go out to climb trees with his niece."
"I haven't climbed yet," said the Bishop, looking up at the spreading branches and the huge bare hole of the old tree. "My dear, where do you get your first foothold?"