Not she! Her people live somewhere near here, I believe." Roger looked vaguely round him.

"Her father managed a brick-field on this estate--some parson or other recommended her to mother." "And you don't like her ?" "Well, no--I don't! She's not the kind of woman _I_ want." He blurted it out, adding hurriedly, "But my wife thinks a lot of her." Chloe dismissed the topic of the nurse, but still let him run on about the child.

Amazing!--this development of paternity in the careless, handsome youth of three years before.

She was amused and bored by it.
But her permission of it had thawed him--that she saw.
Presently, from the child she led him on to common acquaintance--old friends--and talk flowed fast.

She made him laugh; and the furrows in the young brow disappeared.