' standing, was first
taken into the confidence of Ginger Stott's mother, the scheme which she
afterwards elaborated immediately presented itself to her mind. This
fact is a curious instance of Ellen Mary's mobility of intellect, and
the student of heredity may here find matter for careful thought.[3]

The confidence in question was Ginger's declared intention of becoming
the father of the world's greatest bowler. Mrs. Stott was a dark,
garrulous, rather deaf little woman, with a keen eye for the main
chance; she might have become a successful woman of business if she had
not been by nature both stingy and a cheat. When her son presented his
determination, her first thought was to find some woman who would not
dissipate her son's substance, and in her opinion--not expressed to
Ginger--the advertised purpose of the contemplated marriage evidenced a
wasteful disposition.

Mrs. Stott did not think of Ellen Mary as a possible daughter-in-law,
but she did hold forth for an hour and three-quarters on the
contemptible qualities of the young maidens, first of Ailesworth, and
then with a wider swoop that was not justified by her limited
experience, of the girls of England, Scotland, and Ireland at large.

It required the flexible reasoning powers of Ellen Mary to find a
solution of the problem. Any ordinary, average woman of forty-two, a
declared spinster of seven years' standing, who had lived all her life
in a provincial town, would have been mentally unable to realise the
possibilities of the situation. Such a representative of the decaying
sexual instinct would have needed the stimulus of courtship, at the
least of some hint of preference displayed by the suitor. Ruled by the
conventions which hold her sex in bondage, she would have deemed it
unwomanly to make advances by any means other than innuendo, the subtle
suggestions which are the instruments of her sex, but which are often
too delicate to pierce the understanding of the obtuse and slow-witted
male.

Ellen Mary stood outside the ruck that determines the destinies of all
such typical representatives. She considered the idea presented to her
by Mrs. Stott with an open and mobile intelligence. She weighed the
character of Ginger, the possibilities of rejection, and the influence
of Mrs. Stott; and she gave no thought to the conventions, nor to the
criticisms of Ailesworth society. When she had decided that such chances
as she could calculate were in her favour, Elle