fore the fire with a gurgle of comfort and dropped her bonnet and
gloves on the floor beside her. "Yesterday we spent at the Museum.
George explained the Elgin marbles to me. I don't suppose any body in
London has studied their history so thoroughly. I did wish you could
have heard him. And the day before I was at the House--in the ladies'
gallery. I can't imagine how he got admission for me. He IS so
clever!"

"We are going down to Canterbury for a couple of days," said Clara.
"We start at noon. Will you go with us?"

"No, I think not. George does not seem to care for cathedrals. And he
has plans for me, no doubt."

Miss Vance brushed the bonnet and carefully rolled up the strings.
"Are you satisfied? Is London the London you have been thinking of
these twenty years?" she asked.

"Oh, a thousand times more! And George has been with me every
day--every day!"

Miss Vance picked up the gloves, looking impatiently at the poor lady's
happy face. "Now she has gone off into one of her silly transports of
delight, and for no earthly reason!"

"I noticed that George has seen very little of Lisa lately," she said
tentatively. "If he really means to marry her----"

"Marry her! Clara! You surely never feared THAT?"

"He certainly told us plainly enough that he would do it," said Miss
Vance testily.

"Oh, you don't understand him! You have had so little to do with young
men. They are all liable to attacks like that--as to measles and
scarlet fever. But they pass off. Now, George is not as susceptible
as most of them. But," lowering her voice, "he was madly in love with
the butcher's Kate when he was ten, and five years afterward offered to
marry the widow Potts. I thought he had outgrown the disease. There
has been nothing of the kind since, until this fancy. It is passing
off. Of course it is mortifying enough to think that such a poor
creature as that could attract him for an hour."

"I was to blame," Miss Vance said, with an effort. "I brought her in
his way. But how was I to know that she was such a cat, and he
such---- If he should marry her----"

Mrs. Waldeaux laughed angrily. "You are too absurd, Clara. A
flirtation with such a woman was degrading enough, but George is not
quite mad. He has not even spoken of her for days. Oh, here he comes!
That is his step on the stairs." She ran to the door. "He found that
I was out and has followed me. He is the most ridiculous mother's boy