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“Please tell me quite frankly, Miss Sidmouth, would you object to the voyage back without me? Because you were so good about letting me come with you, that I couldn’t think———”

“Oh, my dear, as far as that goes, I really much prefer doing things for myself. Other people fussing over my belongings always fidget me.”

Tact was not Miss Sidmouth’s strong point, but she meant to be kind. If Aunt Sophia did not object and Uncle Markham could have her, it would be a very good opportunity for Pamela to see more of the country. “I believe California is charming, and you are a little pale, dear child. An out-of-door life for a few weeks will do you a great deal of good and send you home in good spirits.”

Pamela’s letters to England aroused a storm of argument. Aunt Sophia, naturally, was eloquent with indignation; her husband was delighted. He was fond of his brother Markham.

“If you remember, Sophia, when Pamela first decided to go to America, I was most anxious to write to Markham and suggest that she should go on to him———”

“I am quite aware of that, and perhaps you will remember that I absolutely declined to have such a thing suggested. We have not seen Markham for over fifteen years, and, as you know, I never approved of him. And he has probably deteriorated steadily ever since, away from England and people of the class he was born into.”

“My dear Sophia, you seem to forget that I met both Markham and his wife in San Francisco, when I made that trip ten years ago. She was a very fine woman indeed—a widow, you know, with money of her own—an able business woman, and altogether quite———”

“You seem to forget, Roger, that she died soon afterwards, and that since then your brother has married again.”

“So he did, by Jove! But that will be all right, Sophia.”