s, I was really grateful for that, and
immensely relieved to find that matters could he completed without them.

When we reached the house, the bell was ringing for tea and my father
was coming out of the library, followed by the lawyers.

"So that's all right, gentlemen?" he was saying.

"Yes, that's all right, sir," they were answering; and then, seeing us
as we entered, my father said to Lord Raa:

"And what about you two?"

"We're all right also," said his lordship in his drawling voice.

"Good!" said my father, and he slapped his lordship sharply on the back,
to his surprise, and I think, discomfiture.

Then with a cackle of light laughter among the men, we all trooped into
the drawing room.

Aunt Bridget in her gold-rimmed spectacles and new white cap, poured out
the tea from our best silver tea-pot, while Nessy MacLeod with a
geranium in her red hair, and Betsy Beauty, with large red roses in her
bosom, handed round the cups. After a moment, my father, with a radiant
face, standing back to the fire, said in a loud voice:

"Friends all, I have something to tell you."

Everybody except myself looked up and listened, though everybody knew
what was coming.

"We've had a stiff tussle in the library this afternoon, but everything
is settled satisfactory--and the marriage is as good as made."

There was a chorus of congratulations for me, and a few for his
lordship, and then my father said again:

"Of course there'll be deeds to draw up, and I want things done correct,
even if it costs me a bit of money. But we've only one thing more to fix
up to-day, and then we're through--the wedding. When is it to come off?"

An appeal was made to me, but I felt it was only formal, so I glanced
across to Lord Raa without speaking.

"Come now," said my father, looking from one to the other. "The clean
cut is the short cut, you know, and when I'm sot on doing a thing, I
can't take rest till it's done. What do you say to this day next month?"

I bowed and my intended husband, in his languid way, said:

"Agreed!"

A few minutes afterwards the motor was ordered round, and the gentlemen
prepared to go. Then the silver-haired terrier was missed, and for the
first time that day his lordship betrayed a vivid interest, telling us
its price and pedigree and how much he would give rather than lose it.
But at the last moment Tommy appeared with the dog in his arms and
dropped it into the car, whereupon my intended husband th