
    "And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the traditional arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you, and so on--all of which are, for various reasons, cant." She sewed on.  "I'm only your sister.  I haven't any authority over you, and I don't want to have any.  Just to put before you what I think the truth.  You see"--she shook off the pince-nez to which she had recently taken--"in a few years we shall be the same age practically, and I shall want you to help me.  Men are so much nicer than women."
    "Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?"
    "I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance."
    "Has nobody arst you?"
    "Only ninnies."
    "Do people ask Helen?"
    "Plentifully."
    "Tell me about them."
    "No."
    "Tell me about your ninnies, then."
    "They were men who had nothing better to do," said his sister, feeling that she was entitled to score this point.  "So take warning: you must work, or else you must pretend to work, which is what I do.  Work, work, work if you'd save your soul and your body.  It is honestly a necessity, dear boy.  Look at the Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke.  With all their defects of temper and understanding, such men give me more pleasure than many who are better equipped and I think it is because they have worked regularly and honestly.
    "Spare me the Wilcoxes," he moaned.
    "I shall not.  They are the right sort."
    "Oh, goodness me, Meg!" he protested, suddenly sitting up, alert and angry.  Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine personality.
    "Well, they're as near the right sort as you can imagine."
    "No, no--oh, no!"
    "I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny, but who came back so ill from Nigeria.  He's gone out there again, Evie Wilcox tells me--out to his duty."
    "Duty" always elicited a groan.
    "He doesn't want the money, it is work he wants, though it is beastly work--dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over
