"You are quite sure they do ... want to?"
"Oh yes—I think so. At least, I'm quite sure Percy does."
"Why not Aunt Constance?"
"Because I can't imagine anyone wanting to rush into any of my cousins' arms—my he-cousins. It's a peculiarity of cousins, I suppose. If any of mine had been palatable, he would have caught on, and it would have come off. Because they all want me, always."
"That's an old story, Gwen dear." The two ladies looked ruefully at one another, with a slight shoulder-shrug apiece over a hopeless case. Then Miss Grahame said:—"Then you consider Constance Dickenson is still palatable?" She laughed on the word a little—a sort of protest. "At nearly forty?"
"Oh dear, yes! Not that she's forty, nor anything like it. She's thirty-six. Besides, it has nothing to do with age. Or very little. Why—how old is that dear old lady at Chorlton that was jealous of your little boy's old woman in London?"
"Old Goody Marrable? Over eighty. But the other old lady is older still, and Dave speaks well of her, anyhow! We shall see her to-morrow. We must insist on that."
"Well—I could kiss old Goody Marrable. I should be sorry for her bones, of course. But they're not her fault, after all! She's quite an old darling. I hope Aunt Connie and Percy will manage a little common sense to-morrow. They'll have the house to themselves, anyhow. Ta bye-bye, Chloe dear!"
Miss Grahame looked in on her way to her own room to see that Miss Dickenson had been provided with all the accessories of a good night—a margin of pillows and blankets à choix, and so on. Hot-water-bottle time had scarcely come yet, but hospitality might refer to it. There was, however, a word to say touching the evening just ended. What did Miss Grahame think of Gwen? Aunt Constance's parti pris in life was a benevolent interest in the affairs of everybody else.