Lissa still stormed, but Georgie, with one of the sudden little gusts of temper to which she had always been liable, swept on to her and bade her be quiet at once and have a little self-control.  She seized a child in each hand and whirled them out of the room with instructions to go to Nanny and have their faces washed.  Then she came back to Ishmael and perched herself on the arm of his chair.  She looked very young at the moment, for her attitude was of the Georgie of old days, and her round face was screwed up in an expression of mock-penitence as she rumpled his hair.  She would have looked younger if the fashions had been kinder, but the beginning of the ’nineties was not a gracious period for women’s dress.  The sweep of the crinoline, the piquancy of the fluted draperies and deliciously absurd bustle, had alike been lost; in their stead reigned serge and cloth gowns that buttoned rigidly and had high stiff little collars.  Braid meandered over Georgie’s chest on either side of the buttons, and her pretty round neck was hidden and her cheeks made to seem coarse by the stiff collar, while her plump arms looked as though stuck on like those of a doll in their sleeves of black cloth which contrasted with the bodice and skirt of fawn-coloured serge.  Her straight fringe that had had the merit of suiting her face was now frizzed, while the rest of her hair was twisted into what was known as a “tea-pot handle” at the back of her head.

Ishmael let her pull his head against the scratchy curves of braid, but he was preoccupied and kept up a tattoo on the writing-table with a paper-knife.  There had been so many of these scenes since Nicky had been growing up; Georgie had changed towards the boy ever since her own children had been born.  She was never unfair to him, but she seemed as though always on the watch.  He must not come near the babies with his dirty boots on, must stay where he had been before he came near them at all, for fear he had wandered where she considered there might be infection.  His dogs had come under the same ban, and one way and another she had gone the right way to sicken Nicky of his little sisters if he had not been both sweet-natured and rather impervious.  Ishmael had sometimes resented all this on Nicky’s behalf, and then Georgie had accused him of loving his son the most.  Of course, she knew the others were “only girls,” and therefore she supposed of no interest to a farmer....  Scenes such as this would end in penitence on her part and a weary forgiveness on Ishmael’s.  He loved Georgie and all his children deeply—­perhaps his children meant something more to him—­but he never could quite do away with the feeling that there was something rather absurd about the father of a family....

“What were you going to say about Nicky when I stopped you?” he asked.  “Where is it he goes?  Is it anywhere in particular?”

“I thought you knew,” said Georgie slowly, “though I might have known you didn’t; you never see anything, which may be very beautiful, but, believe me, can be very trying to a poor female!  If you really want to know, he goes over to Penzance in his tandem every early-closing day to take out Miss Polly Behenna—­from Behenna the draper’s in Market Jew Street.”