uncertainly.

"Funny?"

"Yes."

"Do you think so?"

"Of course--I've heard the bishop tell it myself--and I know _he_ thinks
it funny."

"Well--then I'll use it as a funny story. Of course, it _is_ funny--I
only thought"--what it was he only thought Nancy never knew.

Small bits of things to wonder at, these were, and the wonder brought no
illumination. She only knew there were times when they two seemed of
different worlds, bereft of power to communicate; and at these times his
superbly assured wooing left her slightly dazed.

But there were other times, and different--and slowly she became used to
the idea of him--persuaded both by his own court and by the spirited
encomiums that he evoked from Aunt Bell.

Aunt Bell was at that time only half persuaded by Allan to re-enter the
church of her blameless infancy. She was still minded to seek a little
longer outside the fold that _rapport_ with the Universal Mind which she
had never ceased to crave. In this process she had lately discarded
Esoteric Buddhism for Subliminal Monitions induced by Psychic Breathing
and correct breakfast-food. For all that, she felt competent to declare
that Allan was the only possible husband for her niece, and her niece
came to suspect that this might be so.

When at last she had wondered herself into a state of inward
readiness--a state still governed by her outward habit of resistance,
this last was beaten down by a letter from Mrs. Tednick, who had been a
school friend as Clara Tremaine, and was now married, apparently with
results not too desirable.

"Never, my dear," ran the letter to Nancy, "permit yourself to think of
marrying a man who has not a sense of humour. Do I seem flippant? Don't
think it. I am conveying to you the inestimable benefits of a trained
observation. Humour saves a man from being impossible in any number of
ways--from boring you to beating you. (You may live to realise that the
tragedy of _the first_ is not less poignant than that of the second.)
Whisper, dear!--All men are equally vain--at least in their ways with a
woman--but humour assuredly preserves many unto death from betraying it
egregiously. Beware of him if he lack it. He has power to crucify you
daily, and yet be in honest ignorance of your tortures. Don't think I am
cynical--and indeed, my own husband is one of the best and dearest of
souls in the world, _the biggest heart_--but be sure you marry no man
without humour. Don't think a man has