turned twenty-two.'

The others laughed scornfully.

'Can't I have who I like for a masher?' cried Fanny, reddening a little.
'Who said I was going to marry him? I'm in no particular hurry to get
married. You think everybody's like yourselves.'

'If there was any chance of old Lord turning up his toes,' said Beatrice
thoughtfully. 'I dare say he'll leave a tidy handful behind him, but
then he may live another ten years or more.'

'And there's Nancy,' exclaimed Ada. 'Won't she get half the plunder?'

'May be plenty, even then,' said Beatrice, her head aside. 'The piano
business isn't a bad line. I shouldn't wonder if he leaves ten or
fifteen thousand.'

'Haven't you got anything out of Horace?' asked Ada of Fanny. 'What has
he told you?'

'He doesn't know much, that's the fact.'

'Silly! There you are. His father treats him like a boy; if he talked
about marrying, he'd get a cuff on the ear. Oh, I know all about old
Lord,' Ada proceeded. 'He's a regular old tyrant. Why, you've only to
look at him. And he thinks no small beer of himself, either, for all he
lives in that grubby little house; I shouldn't wonder if he thinks us
beneath him.'

She stared at her sisters, inviting their comment on this _ludicrous_
state of things.

'I quite believe Nancy does,' said Fanny, with a point of malice.

'She's a stuck-up thing,' declared Mrs. Peachey. 'And she gets worse as
she gets older. I shall never invite her again; it's three times she has
made an excuse--all lies, of course.

'Who will _she_ marry?' asked Beatrice, in a tone of disinterested
speculation.

Mrs. Peachey answered with a sneer:

'She's going to the Jubilee to pick up a fancy Prince.'

'As it happens,' objected Fanny, 'she isn't going to the Jubilee at all.
At least she says she isn't. She's above it--so her brother told me.'

'I know who _wants_ to marry her,' Ada remarked, with a sour smile.

'Who is that?' came from the others.

'Mr. Crewe.'

With a significant giggle, Fanny glanced at the more sober of her
sisters; she, the while, touched her upper lip with the point of her
tongue, and looked towards the window.

'Does he?' Fanny asked of the ceiling.

'He wants money to float his teetotal drink,' said Beatrice. 'Hasn't he
been at Arthur about it?'

'Not that I know,' answered the wife.

'He tried to get round me, but I--'

A scream of incredulity from Fanny, and a chuckle from Mrs. Peachey,
covered the rest of the sentence. Beat