"Well," Balt amended with a sheepish smile, "you may say that I did not feel as though she had any reason to be. I have very little experience as a mother, after all, though quite a deal of experience with daughters."

As a mother, he had proved to be decidedly lacking; that was why, even though he did not believe he could ever love a woman as he had Mary, he had been so eager to wed Miss Lovegood. The now-spinster had, he knew, rather dodged a bullet in jilting him, but he still could not help but wonder what the girls' (and Sebastian's!) life could be like with a proper maternal figure in the home.