a short invitation, the shorter the
better. Young people for choice--cheery, and fond of roast fowl. Mary
Mallison for one."

"Because she is young and cheery?"

"It doesn't matter a bit. She is going to be asked," maintained Grizel,
with that characteristic inconsequence which she had the power to turn
into the most charming of attributes. "She shall have the nicest
partner, and the best place, and the merrythought all to herself. I'm
so _sorry_ for Mary Mallisons. There are such a horde of them, and
nobody wants them, and they don't want themselves, and it's all so wrong
and wasteful and piteous, and I never see one of them, and look into her
poor, starved little face that I don't say to myself with a shudder,
`Suppose that was _me_?'"

Martin smiled at her adoringly.

"Oh! but it isn't, and it never by any possibility could have been.
Besides, don't you think it's their own fault? You were twenty-eight
when we were married, and you had lived alone with a cross old aunt.
You might easily have turned into a Mary Mallison yourself, if you had
so little spirit as to allow yourself to be starved. Even if you had
never married, can you imagine yourself sinking into a depth of apathy
and indifference? There's something contemptible about it. An
unmarried woman has such wide possibilities. There is so much work
waiting for her to do."

"If she is allowed to do it! But what if there is a chain around her
neck, in the shape of some relation who thinks that her work is to be an
understudy at home? What would Mrs Mallison have to say to wide
possibilities, while she wants a daughter to run messages and arrange
the flowers? What would _you_ have said in the days when you needed
Katrine, if she had talked of her life's work? Her work was obviously
to darn your socks until such time as you found someone else whom you
liked better, when--pouf!"--she snapped her fingers--"enough of Katrine!
Let her go out into the wilds, and see what she can find!"

"Well! She very speedily found something that she liked better.
Katrine was not a happy illustration, young woman! In your ever-present
desire to be personal, you overlooked--"

"Exceptions prove the rule," Grizel said stubbornly. "Besides, we were
not discussing Katrine, we were discussing the roast-fowl dinner. Two
Mallisons, the Hunters, Captain Peignton. Who else? We might as well
make it up to ten while we are about it."

Martin suggested the name of s