ner, by the way,
soon. But I was talking of Mr. Sylvester, who is a model of
punctuality. (Give me a piece of _baba_ for Mefistofele, please!) Mr.
Sylvester was here last Saturday, and the Saturday before that. I
think it is highly probable, Mary, that we shall be honoured with a
visit from Mr. Sylvester to-day."

"I hope not!" said the girl with some energy. "I have a couple of
songs that I must positively try over before to-night. Surely, it is
a little late too, even for Mr. Sylvester."

"It is barely half-past five," said Lady Garnett, lazily feeding her
pug, "and he knows that we do not dine till eight. Resign yourself,
_cherie_; he will certainly come."

She glanced across at the young girl, pointing, with her keen gaze,
words which seemed trivial enough. And Mary, her calm forehead
puckered with a certain vague annoyance which she disdained to
analyse, understood perfectly all that the elder lady was too
discreet to say. She sat for a little while, her hands resting idly
in her lap, or smoothing the creases out of her long, soft gloves.
Then she rose and moved quickly across to Lady Garnett's side, knelt
suddenly down by her chair.

"Ah, my aunt!" she cried impulsively, "tell me what is to be done?"

Lady Garnett glanced up from the novel into which she had subsided;
she laid it on the little tea-table with a sigh of relief at this
sudden mood of confidence, coming a little strangely amidst the
young girl's habitual reticence.

"We will talk, my dear," she said, "now you are practical. I
suppose, by the way, he has not proposed?"

Mary shook her head.

"That is it, Aunt Marcelle! That is exactly what I want to prevent.
Is--is he going to?"

Lady Garnett smiled, and her smile had a very definite quality
indeed.

"I would not cherish any false hopes, my dear. Charles Sylvester is
a young man--not so very young though, by the way--whose conclusions
are very slow, but when they arrive, _mon Dieu_! they are durable. I
am sure he is terribly tenacious. It took him a long time to
conclude that he was in love with you; at first, you know, he was a
little troubled about your fortune, but at last he came to that
conclusion--at Lucerne."

"Oh, at Lucerne!" protested the young girl with a nervous laugh.
"Surely not there!"

"It was precisely at Lucerne," continued Lady Garnett, "that he
decided you would make him an adorable wife, and, in effect, it was
a considerable piece of wisdom. And since then his con