“Well, to return to Sara’s, you need not worry.  I think he will, in all probability, be in such raptures over the possession of anything so delicious as Sara promises to be, that he will overlook these little pluralities on her part.”

“Yes, Betty, of course; but does that sort of thing last?”

“You ought to know, to a certain extent.”

“Ah! but then David is such a dear.”

“I think it is quite likely that Sara will find a dear too.”

“I hope so, oh! how I hope so!” said Diana.  “I often wonder what it must be to find you have given your daughter to some one who is unkind to her.  I can hardly imagine so great a sorrow!  I dare not even think of David the day Betty marries.  He says he thinks it must be worse for a father than a mother.”

“I wonder,” I said.  “I think a mother perhaps has a greater belief in the goodness of men; a woman, a happy woman certainly, has so little knowledge of men, other than her own.”

“Yes,” said Diana, “a good father and a good husband give one a very deep rooted faith and belief in the goodness of mankind generally.  How we are prosing, Betty!”

Zerlina meanwhile sat on a rock, of the hardness of which she complained.  She found fault with our cove, the sun was too hot and the wind was too strong.  But then she had driven ten miles in a wagonette under Teddy and the twins, so it was no wonder she grumbled a little.

“I can’t think,” she said plaintively, “why my hair doesn’t look nice when it blows about in the wind, and I hate myself sun burnt.  I can’t bear seeing my nose wherever I look.  You and Betty are the stuff martyrs are made of.  It would be comparatively easy to walk to the stake if you had the right amount of hair hanging down behind; without it, no amount of religious conviction would avail.  Oh dear, I used to have such lots, before I had measles!  I hardly knew what to do with it!”

“That’s rather what we find with Betty’s,” said Diana; “we plait it up as tight as we can, don’t we, darling?” she said, re-tying the ribbon which secured Betty’s very thick pigtail.

“I had twice as much as Betty, at her age, I’m sure,” said Zerlina, forgetting a photograph which stands on Jim’s dressing-table, of a small fat girl with very little hair and that rather scraggy.  But what does it matter?  These are the sort of traditions women cling to.

Someone suggested building a steamship in the sand, grown-ups, children, and all, and Hugh was told to go and make a second-class berth.  He retired to a short distance, and no sound coming from his direction, we looked round and saw him in ecstatic raptures, rocking himself backward and forward.

“What are you doing, Hugh? " we said.

“Well,” said Hugh, “I was told to make a second-class berth.  I suppose that means twins, and I ’m nursing them.”

Zerlina took it quite well, and was easily persuaded that there was no insult intended to her twins in particular.