Flora took the news rather with the air of a mother-dog that says to her puppy: "Oh, very well, young thing! Go and stick your teeth in it and find out for yourself!" Sooner or later this always happened, and generally sooner nowadays.

Besides, she could not help feeling that she would get more of Felix, to her a matter of greater importance than she gave sign of.

But inwardly the news had given her a shock almost as sharp as that felt by him.

Was she really the mother of one old enough to love?
Was the child that used to cuddle up to her in the window-seat to be read to, gone from her; that used to rush in every morning at all inconvenient moments of her toilet; that used to be found sitting in the dark on the stairs, like a little sleepy owl, because, for-sooth, it was so 'cosey'?
Not having seen Derek, she did not as yet share her husband's anxiety on that score, though his description was dubious: "Upstanding young cockerel, swinging his sporran and marching to pipes--a fine spurn about him! Born to trouble, if I know anything, trying to sweep the sky with his little broom!" "Is he a prig ?" "No-o.

There's simplicity about his scorn, and he seems to have been brought up on facts, not on literature, like most of these young monkeys.