laugh escaped her.

CHAPTER VI

One day Joan, lunching at the club, met Madge Singleton.

"I've had such a funny letter from Flossie," said Joan, "begging me
almost with tears in her ink to come to her on Sunday evening to meet a
'gentleman friend' of hers, as she calls him, and give her my opinion of
him. What on earth is she up to?"

"It's all right," answered Madge. "She doesn't really want our opinion
of him--or rather she doesn't want our real opinion of him. She only
wants us to confirm hers. She's engaged to him."

"Flossie engaged!" Joan seemed surprised.

"Yes," answered Madge. "It used to be a custom. Young men used to ask
young women to marry them. And if they consented it was called 'being
engaged.' Still prevails, so I am told, in certain classes."

"Thanks," said Joan. "I have heard of it."

"I thought perhaps you hadn't from your tone," explained Madge.

"But if she's already engaged to him, why risk criticism of him," argued
Joan, ignoring Madge's flippancy. "It's too late."

"Oh, she's going to break it off unless we all assure her that we find
him brainy," Madge explained with a laugh. "It seems her father wasn't
brainy and her mother was. Or else it was the other way about: I'm not
quite sure. But whichever it was, it led to ructions. Myself, if he's
at all possible and seems to care for her, I intend to find him
brilliant."

"And suppose she repeats her mother's experience," suggested Joan.

"There were the Norton-Browns," answered Madge. "Impossible to have
found a more evenly matched pair. They both write novels--very good
novels, too; and got jealous of one another; and threw press-notices at
one another's head all breakfast-time; until they separated. Don't know
of any recipe myself for being happy ever after marriage, except not
expecting it."

"Or keeping out of it altogether," added Joan.

"Ever spent a day at the Home for Destitute Gentlewomen at East Sheen?"
demanded Madge.

"Not yet," admitted Joan. "May have to, later on."

"It ought to be included in every woman's education," Madge continued.
"It is reserved for spinsters of over forty-five. Susan Fleming wrote an
article upon it for the _Teacher's Friend_; and spent an afternoon and
evening there. A month later she married a grocer with five children.
The only sound suggestion for avoiding trouble that I ever came across
was in a burlesque of the _Blue Bird_. You remember the scene where th