'There's
been a swarm of them in one corner of the ceiling for manny years,
an' we don't like to disturb them.' . . . Benella said yesterday:
'Of course, when you three separate, I shall stay with the one that
needs me most; but if Miss Peabody SHOULD settle over here anywhere,
I'd like to take a scrubbing brush an' go through the castle, or
whatever she's going to live in, with soap and sand and ammonia, and
make it water-sweet before she sets foot in it.' . . . As for the
children, however, no one could regard them as a drawback, for they
are altogether charming; not well disciplined, of course, but
lovable to the last degree. Broona was planning her future life
when we were walking together yesterday. Jackeen is to be 'an
engineer, by the sea,' so it seems, and Broona is to be a farmer's
wife with a tiny red bill-book like Mrs. Colquhoun's. Her little
boys and girls will sell the milk, and when Jackeen has his
engineering holidays he will come and eat fresh butter and scones
and cream and jam at the farm, and when her children have their
holidays they will go and play on 'Jackeen's beach.' It is the
little people I rely upon chiefly, after all. I wish you could have
seen them cataract down the staircase to greet her this morning. I
notice that she tries to make me divert their attention when Dr.
Gerald is present; for it is a bit suggestive to a widower to see
his children pursue, hang about, and caress a lovely, unmarried
lady.
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