transmitted to her only child.

"I think you know my son very well?" she observed suavely.

Rather to her own surprise, Mrs. Otway grew a little pink. "Yes," she
said. "Major Guthrie and I are very good friends. He has sometimes been
most kind in giving me advice about my money matters."

"Ah, well, he does that to a good many people. You'd be amused to know
how often he's asked to be trustee to a marriage settlement, and so on.
But I've lately supposed, Mrs. Otway, that Alick has made a kind
of--well, what shall I say?--a kind of sister of you. He seems so fond
of your girl, too; he always _has_ liked young people."

"Yes, that's very true," said Mrs. Otway eagerly. "Major Guthrie has
always been most kind to Rose." And then she smiled happily, and added,
as if to herself, "Most people are."

Somehow this irritated the old lady. "I don't want to pry into anybody's
secrets," she said--"least of all, my son's. But I _should_ like to be
so far frank with you as to ask you if Alick has ever talked to you of
the Trepells?"

"The Trepells?" repeated Mrs. Otway slowly. "No, I don't think so. But
wait a moment--are they the people with whom he sometimes goes and stays
in Sussex?"

"Yes; he stayed with them just after Christmas. Then he _has_ talked to
you of them?"

"I don't think he's ever exactly talked of them," answered Mrs. Otway.
She was trying to remember what it was that Major Guthrie had said.
Wasn't it something implying that he was going there to please his
mother--that he would far rather stay at home? But she naturally did not
put into words this vague recollection of what he had said about
these--yes, these Trepells. "It's an odd name, and yet it seems familiar
to me," she said hesitatingly.

"It's familiar to you because they are the owners of the celebrated
'Trepell's Polish,'" said the old lady rather sharply. "But they're
exceedingly nice people. And it's my impression that Alick is thinking
very seriously of the elder daughter. There are only two
daughters--nice, old-fashioned girls, brought up by a nice,
old-fashioned mother. The mother was the younger daughter of Lord
Dunsmuir, and the Dunsmuirs were friends of the Guthries--I mean of my
husband's people--since the year one. Their London house is in Grosvenor
Square. When I call Maisie Trepell a girl, I do not mean that she is so
very much younger than my son as to make the thought of such a marriage
absurd. She is nearer thirty than twenty, an