he laid an envelope over
his cup, as a sign to Myra, waiting with poised sugar-tongs, that "as
usual" meant no sugar at all!

Later on, when she one day met Lady Ingleby alone in a passage, Miss
Susannah ventured two hurried questions.

"Oh, tell me, my dear! Is it _really_ true that you are going to marry
Mr. Airth? And have you known him long?"

And Myra smiling down into Susie's plump anxious face replied: "Well, as
a matter of fact, Miss Susannah, Jim Airth is going to marry _me_. And I
cannot explain how long I have known him. I seem to have known him all my
life."

"Ah," whispered Miss Susannah with a knowing smile of conscious
perspicacity; "Eliza and I felt sure it was a tiff."

This remark appeared absolutely incomprehensible to Lady Ingleby; and not
until she had repeated it to Jim, and he had shouted with laughter, and
called her a bare-faced deceiver, did she realise that the "tiff" was
supposed to have been operative during the whole time she and Jim Airth
had sat at separate tables, and showed no signs of acquaintance.

However, she smiled kindly into the archly nodding face. Then, in the
consciousness of her own great happiness, enveloped little Susie in her
beautiful arms, and kissed her.

Miss Susannah never forgot that embrace. It was to her a reflected
realisation of what it must be to be loved by Jim Airth. And, thereafter,
whenever Miss Murgatroyd saw fit to use such adjectives as "indecent,"
"questionable," or "highly improper," Miss Susie bravely gathered up her
wool-work, and left the room.

Thus the golden days went by, and a letter came for Jim Airth from Lady
Ingleby's secretary. Her ladyship was away at present but would be
returning to Shenstone on the following Monday, and would be pleased to
give him an interview on Tuesday afternoon. The two o'clock express from
Charing Cross would be met at Shenstone station, unless he wrote
suggesting another.

"Now that is very civil," said Jim to Myra, as he passed her the letter,
"and how well it suits our plans. We had already arranged both to go up
to town on Monday, and you on to Shenstone. So I can come down by that
two o'clock train on Tuesday, get my interview with Lady Ingleby over as
quickly as may be, and dash off to my girl at the Lodge. I hope to
goodness she won't want to give me tea!"

"Which 'she'?" asked Myra, smiling. "_I_ shall certainly want to give you
tea."

"Then I shall decline Lady Ingleby's," said Jim with decisi