He looked up as she entered, and smiled; he regarded her as almost as much his friend as her father; a composite creature, and a necessary connection between the superior and inferior halves of the household.

“Father not in, I hear,” he said.

“No,” Julia answered.  “What a smell there is!”

Mr. Gillat allowed it.  “There’s something gone wrong with Bouquet,” he said, thoughtfully regarding the stove.

The “Bouquet Heater” was the name under which it was patented; it did not seem quite honest to speak of it as a heater, so perhaps “Bouquet” was the better name.

Julia went to it.  “I should think there is,” she said, and turned it up, and turn it down, and altered the wicks, until she had improved matters a little.

“I’m afraid your father’s having larks,” Johnny said, watching her.

“It’s rather a pity if he is,” Julia answered; “he has got to see some one on business to-morrow.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Frazer, a clergyman who wants to marry Violet.”

Mr. Gillat sat upright.  “Dear, dear!” he exclaimed.  “No?  Really?” and when Julia had given him an outline of the circumstances, he added softly, “A wonderful woman!  I always had a great respect for your mother.”  From which it is clear he thought Mrs. Polkington was to be congratulated.  “And when is it to be?” he asked.

“Violet says a year’s time; they could not afford to marry sooner and do it properly, but it will have to be sooner all the same.”

“A year is not a very long time,” Mr. Gillat observed; “they go fast, years; one almost loses count of them, they go so fast.”

“I dare say,” Julia answered, “but Violet will have to get married without waiting for the year to pass.  We can’t afford a long engagement.”

Mr. Gillat looked mildly surprised and troubled; he always did when scarcity of money was brought home to him, but Julia regarded it quite calmly.

“The sooner Violet is married,” she said, “the sooner we can reduce some of the expenses; we are living beyond our income now—­not a great deal, perhaps, still a bit; Violet’s going would save enough, I believe; we could catch up then.  That is one reason, but the chief is that a long engagement is expensive; you see, we should have to have meals different, and fires different, and all manner of extras if Mr. Frazer came in and out constantly.  We should have to live altogether in a more expensive style; we might manage it for three months, or six if we were driven to it, but for a year—­it is out of the question.”

“But,” Mr. Gillat protested, “if they can’t afford it?  You said he could not; he is a curate.”

“He must get a living, or a chaplaincy, or something; or rather, I expect we must get it for him.  Oh, no, we have no Church influence, and we don’t know any bishops; but one can always rake up influence, and get to know people, if one is not too particular how.”