py, gave them also a reflected glow, and it was hard to
say who had most pleasure from the game, those who played or those who
watched.

Mrs. Westmacott had just finished a set when she caught a glimpse of
Clara Walker sitting alone at the farther end of the ground. She ran
down the court, cleared the net to the amazement of the visitors, and
seated herself beside her. Clara's reserved and refined nature shrank
somewhat from the boisterous frankness and strange manners of the
widow, and yet her feminine instinct told her that beneath all her
peculiarities there lay much that was good and noble. She smiled up at
her, therefore, and nodded a greeting.

"Why aren't you playing, then? Don't, for goodness' sake, begin to be
languid and young ladyish! When you give up active sports you give up
youth."

"I have played a set, Mrs. Westmacott."

"That's right, my dear." She sat down beside her, and tapped her upon
the arm with her tennis racket. "I like you, my dear, and I am going to
call you Clara. You are not as aggressive as I should wish, Clara, but
still I like you very much. Self-sacrifice is all very well, you know,
but we have had rather too much of it on our side, and should like to
see a little on the other. What do you think of my nephew Charles?"

The question was so sudden and unexpected that Clara gave quite a jump
in her chair. "I--I--I hardly ever have thought of your nephew Charles."

"No? Oh, you must think him well over, for I want to speak to you about
him."

"To me? But why?"

"It seemed to me most delicate. You see, Clara, the matter stands
in this way. It is quite possible that I may soon find myself in a
completely new sphere of life, which will involve fresh duties and make
it impossible for me to keep up a household which Charles can share."

Clara stared. Did this mean that she was about to marry again? What else
could it point to?

"Therefore Charles must have a household of his own. That is obvious.
Now, I don't approve of bachelor establishments. Do you?"

"Really, Mrs. Westmacott, I have never thought of the matter."

"Oh, you little sly puss! Was there ever a girl who never thought of the
matter? I think that a young man of six-and-twenty ought to be married."

Clara felt very uncomfortable. The awful thought had come upon her
that this ambassadress had come to her as a proxy with a proposal of
marriage. But how could that be? She had not spoken more than three or
four times with