the moment to collect all the vague tit-bits she had
garnered as to marriage and fit them into a connected whole. She knew
so little, really, of this thing that he suggested, and Mother, she
knew, would not help her. The comic papers were curious about it.
They looked on all men who married as fools, sure to repent; all women
who didn't as ludicrously tragic. The old maid was a figure to be as
much mocked and pitied as the old bachelor was to be envied.

Well, if this were so, it must be jolly hard for women to find a man
who would marry! (Logic teaches that absurd premises will often lead
to sensible conclusions.)

She knew vaguely that one Asked Mamma. There was a book even called
that in the old locked case in the big library. She also knew,
however, that she must battle this thing out herself. Her mother would
say no; what nonsense! Of that she felt sure. It was for her, then,
to decide.

Lock up your Danaee, stern mothers, in all the towers that man's wit may
devise; yet if she is born with a strong resolve knit on her pudgy,
slobbered, baby face, you cannot possibly prevail. You battle with the
forces of uncounted Time.

Mrs. Hallam sat happily in her white drawing-room and read the new
_Queen_, while Helena, up in her bedroom, wrestled with the letter
which her mother luckily had not seen arrive.

Of course it would be a big change, she supposed? Home was a bit dull,
but she had got quite used to it and one knew what to do. Having a
house must be an awful business, and yet--rather thrilling! Probably
Mr. Brett would make a big name; he was so immensely clever; and then
they'd have a great big house, and she'd ask Mother as a guest and give
her all the things she liked and said she never got in her own house!
She laughed at the idea. The whole thing was tremendously amusing.

As Hubert had thought, she was laudably unsloppy. Mrs. Hallam had
never let her guess that there was any sentiment in the whole world
beyond maternal love. That was the heart's whole duty for a girl who
was an only child that had not even seen her father.

Yes, summing it all up, she really felt the chief thing was about women
having to marry or else be a joke, whereas men were a huge lark if they
did. Imagine if, in all her life, she never met another man who would
be fool enough! Home was very nice, of course, but horribly
monotonous. She might read novels now, oh yes; the ones that Mother
chose; but it was just