eak the news. I'd send a wire to Hilda too if I knew her
surname; but I've never been able to find that out. I wish she'd
marry Selby-Harrison. Then I'd know how to address her when I want to
telegraph or write to her."

"Won't you stay for dinner?" said my mother to Miss Battersby. "We can
send you home afterward."

"Oh, no. The car is waiting for me at the rectory. I told the man to put
up. Lord Thormanby----"

"You might break it to him," I said.

"He'll be greatly delighted," said Miss Battersby.

"No, he won't," I said. "At least I shall be very much surprised if he
is. He told me this morning that I was to go and muzzle Lalage."

"He didn't mean it," said Miss Battersby.

"Besides," said my mother, "you will."

I reflected on this. My mother and Miss Pettigrew are intimate friends.
They must have talked over La-lage's future together many times. I knew
what Miss Pettigrew's views were and I suspect that my mother was in
full agreement with them. Owing to the emotional strain to which I had
been subjected I may have been in a hypersensitive condition. I
seemed to detect in my mother's confident prophecy an allusion to Miss
Pettigrew's plans. Women, even women like my mother, are greatly wanting
in delicacy. I was so much afraid of her saying something more on the
subject that I bade Miss Battersby good-bye, hurriedly, and left the
room.

After dinner my mother again took up the subject of my engagement.

"You'll have to go over and see Canon Beresford early to-morrow
morning," she said.

"Of course. But I know what he'll say to me."

"I'm sure he'll be as pleased as I am," said iny mother.

"He won't say so."

My mother looked questioningly at me. I answered her.

"He'll quote that line of Horace," I said, "about a _placens uxor_, but
it won't be true."

"What does that mean?"

"A placid wife," I said, "a gentle, quiet, peaceable sort of wife, who
sits beside the fire and knits, purring gently. When he has finished
that quotation he'll blow his nose and give me the piece out of
Epictetus about the 'price of tranquillity.' He'll mean by that, that
sorry as he is to lose Lalage, the future will hold some compensating
joys. He won't be obliged to dart off at a moment's notice to Wick, or
Brazil, or Borneo. The Canon is, after all, a thoroughly selfish man.
He won't care a bit about something being made of me by Lalage, and if I
try to explain my position to him he'll go out fishing at once."