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side.”
    â€œYou would not like to have descendants?”
    â€œI hardly know what they would do for me, Sir Michael. And I should have to do much for them. More than my resources warranted.”
    â€œWhy, they would grow up and work for you, Galleon.”
    â€œThey would grow up at my expense and work for themselves, Sir Michael. There would be no alternative. And so it would go on.”
    â€œTo think that we are all descendants!” said Joanna.“I am sure I am above the average. I have never worked for myself. It does sound egotistic.”
    â€œWell, I have worked for myself and others in managing things,” said Sir Michael. “I think it is a just claim.”
    â€œYes, Sir Michael. Though most work is for others,” said Galleon, leaving the matter there.
    â€œI think all claims are just,” said Joanna. “That is why they are made. I have never met an unjust claim. I suppose it is because there are not any.”

Chapter III
    â€œNow would aunt Penelope approve of this idleness, Emmeline?”
    â€œNo. Nor approve of anything. She cannot feel approval.”
    â€œShe wants you to get on. She is thinking of your future. With such neighbours as the Egertons we must keep our wits alive. Or we shall not hold our own with them.”
    â€œI don’t know what my own is. And it is better not to know. Then I shall not have to come into it.”
    â€œYou know Father wants you to be educated.”
    â€œBut then I should be different. And he seems to like me as I am.”
    â€œSo do we all. We don’t want our little one altered. We want her to grow into her full self.”
    â€œI believe I am that already. But it is best for people not to know it. They think more of me.”
    â€œOh, I can’t think what to say to you. You must be a changeling. And you will have to live in the world, like everyone else.”
    â€œNo, not like everyone. Only like myself. That is all I shall try to do.”
    â€œIt may not be so easy. You won’t always be sixteen.”
    â€œI feel as if I should. And I think in a way I shall.”
    â€œI am sometimes afraid you will.”
    â€œYou set me a good example. You won’t always be twenty-five. You have already ceased to be it.”
    â€œI forgot my age when Mother died. It was the only thing, if I was to remember yours. Oh, I know Aunt Penelope came to take her place. And has done so with Father, as far as it could be done. But it ended there,and other things devolved on me. Oh, I don’t mean I am not grateful to her. She takes Father off my mind. She does for him what I could not do. He does not see me as on his mental level. How can he, when I am not? We must be content to be ourselves. I did hope to be his right hand in other ways, and to be seen by him as such. But it was not to be. Aunt Penelope loomed too large. Not of set purpose; as the result of the difference between us. I am the first person to recognise it. Though Father’s recognising it so soon made me a thought rueful I admit.”
    â€œIt was Aunt Penelope who recognised it. He never thinks of the difference between her and me.”
    â€œHe does not, you fortunate elf. The difference is too great. So in a sense it might not be there. But I was a step on the way. I tried and failed. I aspired to be what I was not. And so I remained what I am.”
    â€œAunt Penelope says I should improve myself. All she sees in me is room for improvement.”
    â€œShe is not quite right there. And I confess I don’t mind her being a little wrong sometimes.”
    â€œShe and Father are not alike, are they?”
    â€œHeaven forbid!” said Ada, lifting her hands. “If there is a more disparate brother and sister, I have yet to meet them. But she serves Father’s purpose. And so serves ours in a way. She may have saved us from a stepmother. So I am grateful to her, or feel I should be, which is much the same