es
means--" She did not finish the sentence, but knelt down on the carpet
and took the St. Bernard's great head in her hands.

"You don't bother, do you, old boy, as long as you have your bone. Ah,
I'm a selfish wretch. But I am going to have my bone, and I can't help
feeling happy--gloriously, supremely happy!"

And she kissed the dog's cold nose and repeated:

"Supremely--supremely happy!"

II

Miss Townly, gracefully turned away from Hermione's door by Selim, did,
as Artois had surmised, drift away in the fog to the house of her friend
Mrs. Creswick, who lived in Sloane Street. She felt she must unburden
herself to somebody, and Mrs. Creswick's tea, a blend of China tea with
another whose origin was a closely guarded secret, was the most delicious
in London. There are merciful dispensations of Providence even for Miss
Townlys, and Mrs. Creswick was at home with a blazing fire. When she saw
Miss Townly coming sideways into the room with a slightly drooping head,
she said, briskly:

"Comfort me with crumpets, for I am sick with love! Cheer up, my dear
Evelyn. Fogs will pass and even neuralgia has its limits. I don't ask you
what is the matter, because I know perfectly well."

Miss Townly went into a very large arm-chair and waveringly selected a
crumpet.

"What does it all mean?" she murmured, looking obliquely at her friend's
parquet.

"Ask the baker, No. 5 Allitch Street. I always get them from there. And
he's a remarkably well-informed man."

"No, I mean life with its extraordinary changes, things you never
expected, never dreamed of--and all coming so abruptly. I don't think I'm
a stupid person, but I certainly never looked for this."

"For what?"

"This most extraordinary engagement of Hermione's."

Mrs. Creswick, who was a short woman who looked tall, with a briskly
conceited but not unkind manner, and a decisive and very English nose,
rejoined:

"I don't know why we should call it extraordinary. Everybody gets engaged
at some time or other, and Hermione's a woman like the rest of us and
subject to aberration. But I confess I never thought she would marry
Maurice Delarey. He never seemed to mean more to her than any one else,
so far as I could see."

"Everybody seems to mean so much to Hermione that it makes things
difficult to outsiders," replied Miss Townly, plaintively. "She is so
wide-minded and has so many interests that she dwarfs everybody else. I
always feel quite squeezed when I