"I believe I've never seen a nice child. I don't like them."
"But this was such a very fine little chap," Sinclair had protested. "He had a bad leg, too. I think it was rather plucky of him."
"That makes it much worse,—whole children are quite annoying enough."
Sinclair had shaken his head very seriously.
"I think that sums it up," he had said. "Because all those other things I spoke of are included in not liking children. I like them just because they are children."
"And I dislike them because they're children," she had answered.
Lying in her quiet bedroom Joan rather regretted having said some of these things, but she was nevertheless well content that there were no young Pemberleys at Silver Shoal Light. Half asleep, she heard the opposite door open softly and Mrs. Pemberley's voice say:
"I wonder what he'll think, Jim?"
"Who'll think—what—?" murmured Joan as her eyes closed.
