If we should--what is it ?--freeze out your uncle--" "Please call him something else." "Well, we'll call him the encumbrance on the estate; that's legal, I believe, and expresses it nicely.

If we should freeze out the encumbrance, we _might_ freeze him to his village, and he _might_ insist on your going with him, which wouldn't do at _all_, my dear.

For one thing, Malcolm would probably insist on going, also, and I, for one, don't yearn for rural simplicity.

Ha! ha! Oh, you mustn't mind me.

I'm only a doting mamma, dearie, and I have my air castles like everyone else.