"Freddy, I don't think Mabel ought to have any more jam," says Mrs.

Monkton, presently, "or Tommy either." She looks at the children as she speaks, and sighs softly. "It will cost a great deal," says she.

"The jam!" says her husband. "Well, really, at the rate they are consuming it--I----"

"Oh, no. The railway--the boat--the fare--the whole journey," says she.

"The journey?" says Joyce.

"Why, to England, to take them over there to see their grandmother,"

says Mrs. Monkton calmly.

"But, Barbara----"

"Well, dear?"

"I thought----"

"Barbara! I really consider that question decided," says her husband, not severely, however. Is the dearest wish of his heart to be accomplished at last? "I thought you had finally made up your mind to refuse my mother's invitation?"

"I shall not refuse it," says she, slowly, "whatever you may do."

"I?"

"You said you didn't want to go," says his wife severely. "But I have been thinking it over, and----" Her tone has changed, and a slight touch of pink has come into her pretty cheeks. "After all, Freddy, why should I be the one to keep you from your people?"

"You aren't keeping me. Don't go on that."

"Well, then, will you go by yourself and see them?"

"Certainly not."

"Not even if I give you the children to take over?".

"Not even then."

"You see," says she, with a sort of sad triumph, "I am keeping you from them. What I mean is, that if you had never met me you would now be friends with them."

"I'd a great deal rather be friends with you," says he struggling wildly but firmly with a mutton chop that has been done to death by a bad cook.

"I know that," in a low and troubled tone, "but I know, too, that there is always unhappiness where one is on bad terms with one's father and mother."

"My dear girl, I can't say what bee you have got in your bonnet now, but I beg you to believe, I am perfectly happy at this present moment, in spite of this confounded chop that has been done to a chip. 'G.o.d sends meat, the devil sends cooks.' That's not a prayer, Tommy, you needn't commit it to memory."

"But there's 'G.o.d' and the 'devil' in it," says Tommy, skeptically: "that always means prayers."

"Not this time. And you can't pray to both; your mother has taught you that; you should teach her something in return. That's only fair, isn't it?"

"She knows everything," says Tommy, dejectedly. It is quite plain to his hearers that he regrets his mother's universal knowledge--that he would have dearly liked to give her a lesson or two.

"Not everything," says his father. "For example, she cannot understand that I am the happiest man in the world; she imagines I should be better off if she was somebody else's wife and somebody else's mother."

"Whose mother?" demands Tommy, his eyes growing round.

"Ah, that's just it. You must ask her. She has evidently some _arriere pensee_."

"Freddy," says his wife in a low tone.

"Well! What am I to think? You see," to Tommy, who is now deeply interested, "if she wasn't your mother, she'd be somebody else's."

"No, she wouldn't," breaks in Tommy, indignantly. "I wouldn't let her, I'd hold on to her. I--" with his mouth full of strawberry jam, yet striving n.o.bly to overcome his difficulties of expression, "I'd beat her!"

"You shouldn't usurp my privileges," says his father, mildly.

"Barbara!" says Joyce, at this moment. "If you have decided on going to London, I think you have decided wisely; and it may not be such an expense after all. You and Freddy can manage the two eldest children very well on the journey, and I can look after baby until you return. Or else take nurse, and leave baby entirely to me."

Mrs. Monkton makes a quick movement.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

"And I go to brave a world I hate, And woo it o'er and o'er; And tempt a wave and try a fate Upon a stranger sh.o.r.e."

"I shall take the three children and you, too, or I shall not go at all," says she, addressing her sister with an air of decision.

"If you have really made up your mind about it," says Mr. Monkton, "I agree with you. The house in Harley street is big enough for a regiment, and my mother says the servants will be in it on our arrival, if we accept the invitation. Joyce will be a great comfort to us, and a help on the journey over, the children are so fond of her."

Joyce turns her face to her brother-in-law and smiles in a little pleased way. She has been so grave of late that they welcome a smile from her now at any time, and even court k. The pretty lips, erstwhile so p.r.o.ne to laughter, are now too serious by far. When, therefore, Monkton or his wife go out of their way to gain a pleased glance from her and succeed, both feel as if they had achieved a victory.

"Why have they offered us a separate establishment? Was there no room for us in their own house?" asks Mrs. Monkton presently.

"I dare say they thought we should be happier, so--in a place of our own."

"Well, I dare say we shall." She pauses for a moment. "Why are they in town now--at this time of year? Why are they not in their country house?"

"Ah! that is a last thorn in their flesh," says Monkton, with a quick sigh. "They have had to let the old place to pay my brother's debts. He is always a trouble to them. This last letter points to greater trouble still."

"And in their trouble they have turned to you--to the little grandchildren," says Joyce, softly. "One can understand it."

"Oh, yes. Oh, you should have told me," says Barbara, flushing as if with pain. "I am the hardest person alive, I think. You think it?"

looking directly at her husband.

"I think only one thing of you," says Mr. Monkton, rising from the breakfast table with a slight laugh. "It is what I have always thought, that you are the dearest and loveliest thing on earth." The bantering air he throws into this speech does not entirely deprive it of the truthful tenderness that formed it. "There," says he, "that ought to take the gloom off the brow of any well-regulated woman, coming as it does from an eight-year-old husband."

"Oh, you must be older than that," says she, at which they all laugh together.