“How are mother and father to-day?” asked Esther.

“Oh, both well.  I left them only a few minutes ago at the dinner table.  I had to hurry off to go to the office.”

“So I perceive,” observed Esther, archly, “and of course, coming here, which is four squares out of your way, will get you there much sooner.”

Emily blushed, and said, smilingly, Esther was “a very impertinent person;” and in this opinion Charlie fully concurred.  They then walked to the window, where they stood, saying, no doubt, to each other those little tender things which are so profoundly interesting to lovers, and so exceedingly stupid to every one else.  Baby, in high glee, was seated on Charlie’s shoulder, where she could clutch both hands in his hair and pull until the tears almost started from his eyes.

“Emily and you have been talking a long while, and I presume you have fully decided on what day you are both to be rescued from your misery, and when I am to have the exquisite satisfaction of having my house completely turned upside down for your mutual benefit,” said Esther.  “I trust it will be as soon as possible, as we cannot rationally expect that either of you will be bearable until it is all over, and you find yourselves ordinary mortals again.  Come now, out with it.  When is it to be?”

“I say next week,” cried Charlie.

“Next week, indeed,” hastily rejoined Emily.  “I could not think of such a thing—­so abrupt.”

“So abrupt,” repeated Charlie, with a laugh.  “Why, haven’t I been courting you ever since I wore roundabouts, and hasn’t everybody been expecting us to be married every week within the last two years.  Fie, Em, it’s anything but abrupt.”

Emily blushed still deeper, and looked out of the window, down the street and up the street, but did not find anything in the prospect at either side that at all assisted her to come to a decision, so she only became more confused and stared the harder; at last she ventured to suggest that day two months.

“This day two months—­outrageous!” said Charlie.  “Come here, dear old Ess, and help me to convince this deluded girl of the preposterous manner in which she is conducting herself.”

“I must join her side if you will bring me into the discussion.  I think she is right, Charlie—­there is so much to be done:  the house to procure and furnish, and numberless other things that you hasty and absurd men know nothing about.”

By dint of strong persuasion from Charlie, Emily finally consented to abate two weeks of the time, and they decided that a family council should be held that evening at Mrs. Ellis’s, when the whole arrangements should be definitely settled.

A note was accordingly despatched by Esther to her mother—­that she, accompanied by Emily and the children, would come to them early in the afternoon, and that the gentlemen would join them in the evening at tea-time.  Caddy was, of course, completely upset by the intelligence; for, notwithstanding that she and the maid-of-all-work lived in an almost perpetual state of house-cleaning, nothing appeared to her to be in order, and worse than all, there was nothing to eat.