“But that isn’t what women want,” said Mrs. Elliot.

“I’m afraid it’s all a great many can hope to have,” sighed Mrs. Thornbury.  “I believe that there are more of us than ever now.  Sir Harley Lethbridge was telling me only the other day how difficult it is to find boys for the navy—­partly because of their teeth, it is true.  And I have heard young women talk quite openly of—­”

“Dreadful, dreadful!” exclaimed Mrs. Elliot.  “The crown, as one may call it, of a woman’s life.  I, who know what it is to be childless—­” she sighed and ceased.

“But we must not be hard,” said Mrs. Thornbury.  “The conditions are so much changed since I was a young woman.”

“Surely maternity does not change,” said Mrs. Elliot.

“In some ways we can learn a great deal from the young,” said Mrs. Thornbury.  “I learn so much from my own daughters.”

“I believe that Hughling really doesn’t mind,” said Mrs. Elliot.  “But then he has his work.”

“Women without children can do so much for the children of others,” observed Mrs. Thornbury gently.

“I sketch a great deal,” said Mrs. Elliot, “but that isn’t really an occupation.  It’s so disconcerting to find girls just beginning doing better than one does oneself!  And nature’s difficult—­very difficult!”

“Are there not institutions—­clubs—­that you could help?” asked Mrs. Thornbury.

“They are so exhausting,” said Mrs. Elliot.  “I look strong, because of my colour; but I’m not; the youngest of eleven never is.”

“If the mother is careful before,” said Mrs. Thornbury judicially, “there is no reason why the size of the family should make any difference.  And there is no training like the training that brothers and sisters give each other.  I am sure of that.  I have seen it with my own children.  My eldest boy Ralph, for instance—­”

But Mrs. Elliot was inattentive to the elder lady’s experience, and her eyes wandered about the hall.

“My mother had two miscarriages, I know,” she said suddenly.  “The first because she met one of those great dancing bears—­they shouldn’t be allowed; the other—­it was a horrid story—­our cook had a child and there was a dinner party.  So I put my dyspepsia down to that.”

“And a miscarriage is so much worse than a confinement,” Mrs. Thornbury murmured absentmindedly, adjusting her spectacles and picking up The Times.  Mrs. Elliot rose and fluttered away.

When she had heard what one of the million voices speaking in the paper had to say, and noticed that a cousin of hers had married a clergyman at Minehead—­ignoring the drunken women, the golden animals of Crete, the movements of battalions, the dinners, the reforms, the fires, the indignant, the learned and benevolent, Mrs. Thornbury went upstairs to write a letter for the mail.