trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in
any house of mine."

A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free
from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the
station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the
interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing
the marriage settlement of his wife.

III

A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any
communication from Miss Halcombe.

On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the
other letters on my table.

It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and
that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired,
before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be
performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's
twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this
arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she
was of age.

I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but
I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment,
caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter,
mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards
upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent
announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir
Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and
in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was
sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had
resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her
sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire.
There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the
circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir
Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her.

At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully
explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on
hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal
experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she
will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In
the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn,
lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to