d it.
Her size is really beyond everything, and her manners are bad."

"Hm!" said Agatha with a wise air. "There was always something about
Jane that attracted men. And she is more knave than fool. But she is
certainly a great ass."

Gertrude looked serious, to imply that she had grown out of the habit
of using or listening to such language. Agatha, stimulated by this,
continued:

"Here are you and I, who consider ourselves twice as presentable and
conversable as she, two old maids." Gertrude winced, and Agatha hastened
to add: "Why, as for you, you are perfectly lovely! And she has asked us
down expressly to marry us."

"She would not presume--"

"Nonsense, my dear Gertrude. She thinks that we are a couple of fools
who have mismanaged our own business, and that she, having managed so
well for herself, can settle us in a jiffy. Come, did she not say to
you, before I came, that it was time for me to be getting married?"

"Well, she did. But--"

"She said exactly the same thing to me about you when she invited me."

"I would leave her house this moment," said Gertrude, "if I thought she
dared meddle in my affairs. What is it to her whether I am married or
not?"

"Where have you been living all these years, if you do not know that the
very first thing a woman wants to do when she has made a good match is
to make ones for all her spinster friends. Jane does not mean any harm.
She does it out of pure benevolence."

"I do not need Jane's benevolence."

"Neither do I; but it doesn't do any harm, and she is welcome to amuse
herself by trotting out her male acquaintances for my approval. Hush!
Here she comes."

Gertrude subsided. She could not quarrel with Lady Brandon without
leaving the house, and she could not leave the house without returning
to her home. But she privately resolved to discourage the attentions
of Erskine, suspecting that instead of being in love with her as he
pretended, he had merely been recommended by Jane to marry her.

Chichester Erskine had made sketches in Palestine with Sir Charles, and
had tramped with him through many European picture galleries. He was a
young man of gentle birth, and had inherited fifteen hundred a year from
his mother, the bulk of the family property being his elder brother's.
Having no profession, and being fond of books and pictures, he had
devoted himself to fine art, a pursuit which offered him on the cheapest
terms a high opinion of the beauty and capacity o