rilly things of her night-gown and peck at her mouth.

"And then she would wake up, David, and find that she had only a bird
instead of a boy."

This shock to Mary was more than he could endure. "You can drop it,"
he said with a sigh. So I dropped the letter, as I think I have already
mentioned; and that is how it all began.

III. Her Marriage, Her Clothes, Her Appetite, and an Inventory of Her
Furniture

A week or two after I dropped the letter I was in a hansom on my way to
certain barracks when loud above the city's roar I heard that accursed
haw-haw-haw, and there they were, the two of them, just coming out of
a shop where you may obtain pianos on the hire system. I had the merest
glimpse of them, but there was an extraordinary rapture on her face, and
his head was thrown proudly back, and all because they had been ordering
a piano on the hire system.

So they were to be married directly. It was all rather contemptible,
but I passed on tolerantly, for it is only when she is unhappy that
this woman disturbs me, owing to a clever way she has at such times of
looking more fragile than she really is.

When next I saw them, they were gazing greedily into the window of the
sixpenny-halfpenny shop, which is one of the most deliciously dramatic
spots in London. Mary was taking notes feverishly on a slip of paper
while he did the adding up, and in the end they went away gloomily
without buying anything. I was in high feather. "Match abandoned,
ma'am," I said to myself; "outlook hopeless; another visit to the
Governesses' Agency inevitable; can't marry for want of a kitchen
shovel." But I was imperfectly acquainted with the lady.

A few days afterward I found myself walking behind her. There is
something artful about her skirts by which I always know her, though
I can't say what it is. She was carrying an enormous parcel that might
have been a bird-cage wrapped in brown paper, and she took it into
a bric-a-brac shop and came out without it. She then ran rather than
walked in the direction of the sixpenny-halfpenny shop. Now mystery
of any kind is detestable to me, and I went into the bric-a-brac
shop, ostensibly to look at the cracked china; and there, still on the
counter, with the wrapping torn off it, was the article Mary had sold
in order to furnish on the proceeds. What do you think it was? It was a
wonderful doll's house, with dolls at tea downstairs and dolls going to
bed upstairs, and a doll showing a do