s Meg;
and Pip says you're ze jammiest girl out, an' I wis' a drate big ziant
would come and huff and puff and blow you into ze middlest part of
ze sea."

Aldith laughed, a little aggravating grown-up laugh, that put the
finishing touch to Baby's anger. She put out her little hand and
gave the guest's arm in its muslin sleeve a sharp, scientific pinch
that Pip had taught her. Then she fled madly away down the long
paddocks, to the bit of bush beyond.

"Insufferable," Aldith muttered angrily, and it needed all Meg's
apologies and coaxings to get her into an amiable frame of mind
again, and to induce her to communicate the enthralling secret.

At last, however, it was imparted, with great impressiveness.
Aldith's eldest sister was engaged, engaged to be married! Oh!
wasn't it heavenly? Wasn't it romantic?--and to the gentleman with
the long fair moustache who had been so much at their house lately.

"I knew it would come--I have seen it coming for a long time.
Oh! I'm not easily blinded;" Aldith said. "I know true love when
I see it. Though certainly for myself I should prefer a dark
moustache, should not you, Marguerite?"

"Ye--es," said Meg. Her views were hardly formed yet on the
subject.

"Jet black, with waxed ends, very stiff," Aldith continued
thoughtfully, "and a soldierly carriage, and very long black
lashes."

"So should I," Meg said, fired in a moment. "Like Guy Deloraine
in 'Angelina's Ambition'." Aldith put her arm more tightly round
her friend.

"Wouldn't it be HEAVENLY, Marguerite, to be engaged--you and I?"
she said, in a tone of dreamy rapture. "To have a dark,
handsome man with proud black eyes just dying with love for you,
going down on his knees, and giving you presents, and taking you
out and all--oh, Marguerite, just think of it!"

Melt's eyes looked wistful. "We're not old enough, though, yet,"
she said with a sigh.

Aldith tossed her head. "That's nonsense; why, Clara Allison is
only seventeen, and look at your own stepmother. Plenty of girls
are actually married at sixteen, Marguerite, and a man proposed
my sister Beatrice when she was only fifteen." Meg looked
impressed and thoughtful.

Then Aldith rose to go. "Mind you're in time for the boat
to-morrow," she said, as they reached the gate; "and, Marguerite,
be sure you make yourself look very nice--wear your cornflower
dress, and see if Mrs. Woolcot will lend you a pair of her gloves,
your grey ones are just a li