ikely to agree with arguments.

"Mr. Douglass's mother is in town," mentioned Miss Loriner, "but she is
resting this afternoon."

"I wasn't aware he had a mother."

"Oh!" With illumination. "Then you haven't known him long. They are
very fond of each other. She is a dear soul. When matters go wrong
down at Ewelme, it is old Mrs. Douglass who puts everything right."

They were separated by a child who had been startled by a look from an
amiable dromedary. Henry came forward.

"I am going to ask my sister-in-law," he said deliberately, "to invite
you down to Morden Place. Thank her, won't you?"

"I'll thank her," replied Gertie, "but I shan't accept the invitation."

"I'd see that she was civil to you."

"And I shall see," said the girl obstinately, "that she doesn't get
many chances of being anything else. I'd no idea you had swell
relatives; otherwise I'd never have gone on with it."

He went back disappointedly, and Mr. Trew, making his escape with every
sign of relief, told Gertie that, with what he might term a vast and
considerable experience of womankind (including one specimen who, in
May of '99, gave him advice on the task of driving horses through
London streets), this particular one was, he declared, the limit. He
described himself as feeling bruised, black and blue, all over.
Without wishing to interfere in matters which did not concern him, he
ventured to suggest that Gertie might possibly be fortunate in her
young man, but she could scarcely claim to be called lucky in her young
man's relations.

"I'm going to chuck it," she replied desperately. "Chuck it
altogether. You were correct in what you said, that Sunday night,
about distances, and I was wrong."

Mr. Trew, flustered by this instant agreement, began to hedge. He did
not pretend, he said, to be always right; he could recollect many
occasions when he had been considerably wide of the mark. In fact, a
bigger blunderhead, excepting in regard to certain matters, of which
this was not one, probably did not exist. Trew begged to point out
that the middle-aged party walking along behind them was, after all,
only one middle-aged party, and there was no reason to assume that she
could knock out every opponent she encountered. At the finish of his
argument, Trew urged his young companion to put on the gloves, and show
what she could do.

"Think I had better not," she said, less definitely. "I shan't like
feeling myself beaten, but