aid Georgy. This
numbering of her husbands was always unpleasant to Charlotte. It seemed
such a very business-like mode of description to be applied to the
father she so deeply regretted. "I was thinking of your step-papa,"
continued Mrs. Sheldon.

"He would never consent to your marrying Mr. Hawkehurst, who really
seems to have nothing to recommend him except his good looks and an
obliging disposition with regard to orders for the theatres."

"I am not bound to consult my stepfather's wishes. I only want to
please you, mamma."

"But, my dear, I cannot possibly consent to anything that Mr. Sheldon
disapproves."

"O, mamma, dear kind mamma, do have an opinion of your own for once in
a way! I daresay Mr. Sheldon is the best possible judge of everything
connected with the Stock Exchange and the money-market; but don't let
him choose a husband for me. Let me have your approval, mamma, and I
care for no one else. I don't want to marry against your will. But I am
sure you like Mr. Hawkehurst."

Mrs. Sheldon shook her head despondingly.

"It's all very well to like an agreeable young man as an occasional
visitor," she said, "especially when most of one's visitors are
middle-aged City people. But it is a very different thing when one's
only daughter talks of marrying him. I can't imagine what can have put
such an idea as marriage into your head. It is only a few months since
you came home from school; and I fancied that you would have stopped
with me for years before you thought of settling."

Miss Halliday made a wry face.

"Dear mamma," she said, "I don't want to 'settle.' That is what one's
housemaid says, isn't it, when she talks of leaving service and
marrying some young man from the baker's or the grocer's? Valentine and
I are not in a hurry to be married. I am sure, for my own part, I don't
care how long our engagement lasts. I only wish to be quite candid and
truthful with you, mamma; and I thought it a kind of duty to tell you
that he loves me, and that--I love him--very dearly."

These last words were spoken with extreme shyness.

Mrs. Sheldon laid down her hair-brushes while she contemplated her
daughter's blushing face. Those blushes had become quite a chronic
affection with Miss Halliday of late.

"But, good gracious me, Charlotte," she exclaimed, growing peevish in
her sense of helplessness, "who is to tell Mr. Sheldon?"

"There is no necessity for Mr. Sheldon to be enlightened yet awhile,
mamma. I