Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/205

 can see all about you as a result of a chain that ought long ago to have been broken, or better still, never—"

"And before that child, too!" Luella burst out. "Caroline, you get right up and come home. I never heard anything like it in my life. Come this minute, now!"

Caroline rose unwillingly; she thought Luella unnecessarily severe.

"As to that," young Mr. Wortley announced composedly, "we differ again. The sooner these matters are discussed frankly before children, the sooner we shall have fewer unhappy men and women. There is nothing whatever in my intentions or Miss—or Dorothy's, to shock or affront the youngest child. I have no children myself, but—"

"Humph!" Luella sniffed furiously, "I sh'd hope not!"

"—but if I had," he pursued evenly, "I should teach them precisely—"

"Look here," Luella interrupted roughly, "look me in the face, both of you!"

They turned their eyes full on her, the boy's