‘Then you intend doing so later on?’ queries he.

’Certainly; we should be very dull if we didn’t, besides there will be always the making up.’

‘Oh what a child you are,’ says he laughing, ’but do you really love me?’

‘Of course,’ replies she gaily, and then seeing how earnest he is she goes up to him and slipping her arms round his neck she says, ’there is one thing you have not done.’

‘What is it?’ asks he.

‘You’ve never settled where we are to live.’

’And more important still, you will not settle when we are to be married.’

’Not just yet; you see I shall have to get some clothes, and they couldn’t be ready before Lent, and it would be unlucky to be married then.’

‘That will put it off for at least three months,’ objects he.

‘Yes—­don’t you think the end of June would do nicely?’

‘It will have to I suppose, but it is a long time off.’

‘Never mind, it will soon be gone,’ says Miss Seaton sweetly.

‘June be it then,’ replies Jimmy.  ‘The leafy month of June.’

CHAPTER XI

    ‘Thee will I love and reverence, evermore.’

       —­AUBREY DE VERE.

‘There, Mab, I really can’t write any more,’ and throwing down her pen, regardless that it is full of ink, and that it alights on a photograph of Teddy, thereby giving him a black eye, Miss Seaton rises from the writing-table and flings herself into an armchair.

‘Well, dear,’ says Mabel, ’I said I would do them for you, after you are gone to-morrow, look at these little china figures, I don’t believe you’ve glanced at them, they came from old Mrs Boothly and I fancy they are real Sevres—?’

‘At it still,’ interrupts George, poking his head in at the door, ’what it is to be on the eve of a wedding; I suppose you’ll want a detective, and, oh, by the bye where are we going to dine?’

‘In your room, I thought,’ replies his wife, ’you see you can go to the club, and we shall not want much.’

‘Fasting before a festival, I suppose,’ says he; ’or perhaps you are afraid you will not be able to get into that new gown of yours.’

‘How do you know anything about my new gown,’ asks Mabel.

George laughs, ’I happened to see it put out for inspection in your room.’

‘My room, what were you doing there?’ begins Mabel, but he has departed.

‘What can he have been doing?’ she says.

‘Go and see,’ suggests Lippa, and Mabel filled with curiosity, hastens upstairs, but returns again in a minute.

‘Look, what the dear thing has given me,’ she cries, holding up a little blue velvet case, ‘I must go and thank him,’ and down she goes to the smoking-room, ‘George, you dear old boy,’ she says, hugging him round the neck, ‘isn’t it lovely,’ she goes on, turning to Philippa who has followed her.