The male population were horribly scandalised at the decision.  Jock and Armine wanted to give up their journey, and John implored his aunt to come to Kencroft; but she only promised to send Babie there if she saw signs of flagging, and the Infanta laughed at the notion, and said she had had an overdose of country enough to last her for years.  Allen said ladies overdid everything, and that Mother Carey could not help being one of the sex, and then he asked her for £10, and said Babie would have plenty of time to copy out “The Single Eye.”  She pouted “I thought you were going to put the finishing touches.”

“I’ve marked them for you.  Why, Barbara, I am surprised,” he added in an elder brotherly tone; “you ought to be thankful to be able to be useful.”

“Useful!  I’ve lots of things to do!  And you?”

“As if I could lug that great MS. of yours about with me on board Apthorpe’s yacht.”

“Never mind, Allen,” said his mother, who had not been intended to hear all this.  “I will do it for you; but Miss Editor must not laugh at my peaked governessy hand.”

“I did not mean that, mother, only Babie ought not to be disobliging.”

“Babie has a good deal to do.  She has an essay to write for her professor, you know, and her hands are pretty full.”

Babie too said, “Mother, I never meant you to undertake it.  Please let me have it now.  Only Allen will never do anything for himself that he can get any one else to do.”

“He could not well do it on board the yacht, my dear.  And I don’t want you to have so much writing on your hands.’

“And so you punish me,” sighed Barbara, more annoyed than penitent.

However, nothing could be more snug and merry than the mother and daughter when left together, for they were like two sisters and suited one another perfectly.  Babie was disappointed that London would not look emptier even in the fashionable squares, which she insisted on exploring in search of solitude.  They made little gay outings in a joyous spirit of adventure, getting up early and going by train to some little station, with an adjacent expanse of wood or heather, whence they came home with their luncheon basket full of flowers, wherewith to gladden Mrs. Lucas’s eyes, and those of Mother Carey’s district.  They prepared their surprises too.  Several hopelessly dingy panels were painted black and adorned with stately lilies and irises, with proud reed-maces, and twining honeysuckle, and bryony, fluttered over by dragon-flies and butterflies, from the brush of mother and daughter.  The stores from Belforest further supplied hangings for brackets, and coverings for cushions, under the dainty fingers of the Infanta, who had far more of the household fairy about her than had her mother, perhaps from having grown up in a home instead of a school, and besides, from being bent on having the old house a delightsome place.