able to
forget it, Hilda. Oh, dear; oh, dear! I do think saintly men are awful
trials."

"But you said just now you thought he would be off his head. You ought
to be very thankful, Aunt Maggie, that he is taking things as he is. Of
course the servants must go away, and the establishment must be put on
an altogether new footing. You'll have to walk instead of ride in
future, but I don't suppose Judy and Babs will much care, and I----"

"Oh, yes," said Aunt Marjorie, "you will be in your new house in
London, new-fangled with your position, and highly pleased and proud to
put Mrs. before your name, and you'll forget all about us. Of course I
am pleased for you, but you're just as bad as your father when you talk
in that cool fashion about dismissing the servants, and when you expect
an old lady like me to tramp all over the place on my feet."

"I told father that if he wished I would break off my engagement."

Aunt Marjorie dried her eyes when her niece made this speech, and looked
at her fixedly.

"I do think," she said, "that you're a greater fool even than poor
Samuel. Is not your engagement to a nice, gentlemanly, clever man like
Jasper Quentyns the one ray of brightness in this desolate day? You,
child, at least are provided for."

"I wonder if you think that I care about being provided for at this
juncture?" answered Hilda, knitting her brows once again in angry
perplexity.

She went away to her own room, and sitting before her desk, wrote a long
letter to her lover.

Quentyns had been called to the Bar, and was already beginning to
receive "briefs."

His income was by no means large, however, and although he undoubtedly
loved Hilda for her own sake, he might not have proposed an immediate
marriage had he not believed that his pretty bride would not come to him
penniless.

Hilda sat with her pen in her hand, looking down at the blank sheet of
paper.

By the same post which had brought the lawyer's dreadful letter there
had come two closely-written sheets from Jasper. He wanted Hilda to
marry him in the autumn, and he had already begun house-hunting.

"We might find it best to take a small flat for a year," he had written,
"but if you would rather have a house, darling, say so. Some people
don't approve of flats. They say they are not so wholesome. One misses
the air of the staircase, and there is a certain monotony in living
altogether on one floor which may not be quite conducive to health. On
the