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 credit for perspicuity. But men are so blind. . . Then we were thrown off by Louise's temperamental trip to Florida. You wrote a forlorn sort of letter saying that she had gone off on a holiday, and it was just after we had invited you both to come to the Riviera with us. That seemed strange."

"What did you think I had married, for God's sake,—an Indian squaw?"

"Don't be horrid! . . . We weren't at all sure you hadn't married a hand grenade."

Keble laughed. "I'm not at all certain that I haven't."

Alice watched him curiously, then abandoned the flicker of curiosity and proceeded to give Louise her due. "It's not so much her brilliance,—though that's remarkable,—but her tact! My dear, she could run a political campaign single-handed. I've never seen the Windroms so beautifully managed in my life. You know we can't manage them; at our house one of the trio is always falling out of the picture. But Louise! the instant she sees an elbow or a leg or a Windromian prejudice sticking out she flips it back in, or widens the frame to include it, and nobody the worse. Her way of setting people to rights and making them feel it is they who are setting everybody else to rights is impayable . . . And the best you could say for her was wild flowers!"

"Since Mrs. Windrom was first here a good deal of water has flowed under the bridges."