Mr. Coningsby said peevishly, threw himself into a chair, and took up the evening paper. “But Babel never was perfect, was it?” Nancy said to her brother in a low voice, yet not so low that her father could not hear if he chose. He did not choose, because at the moment he could not think of a sufficiently short sentence. A minute afterwards it occurred to him that he might have said, “Then it’s perfect now.” But it didn’t matter; Nancy would only have been rude again, and her brother too. Children were. He looked at his sister, who was reading on the other side of the fire. She looked comfortable and interested, so he naturally decided to disturb her. “And what have you been doing today, Sybil?” he asked, with an insincere goodwill, and as she looked up he thought angrily, “Her skin’s getting clearer every day.” “Why, nothing very much,” Sybil Coningsby said. “I did some shopping, and I made a cake, and went for a walk and changed the library books. And since tea I’ve been reading.”
