d
it happen?"

"Oh, we were up at Glaish with the Edmund Fitzarthurs. Lady Edmund is a
sort of cousin of the Morningfields', who have a shooting-lodge near
Glaish--a place called Portlow--and young Trayas was there with them.
Lady Edmund, who is a dear, drove Hermy over to Portlow, and the thing
was done in no time. He simply fell over head and ears in love with
her. You know Hermy is really very handsome in her peculiar way. I
don't think you have ever appreciated her," Mrs. Newell summed up with
a note of exquisite reproach.

"I've appreciated her, I assure you; but one somehow didn't think of
her marrying--so soon."

"Soon? She's three-and-twenty; but you've no imagination," said Mrs.
Newell; and Garnett inwardly admitted that he had not enough to soar to
the heights of her invention. For the marriage, of course, was an
invention of her own, a superlative stroke of business, in which he was
sure the principal parties had all been passive agents, in which
everyone, from the bankrupt and disreputable Fitzarthurs to the rich
and immaculate Morningfields, had by some mysterious sleight of hand
been made to fit into Mrs. Newell's designs. But it was not enough for
Garnett to marvel at her work--he wanted to understand it, to take it
apart, to find out how the trick had been done. It was true that Mrs.
Newell had always said Hermy might go off in the Faubourg if she had a
_dot_--but even Mrs. Newell's juggling could hardly conjure up a _dot:_
such feats as she was able to perform in this line were usually made to
serve her own urgent necessities. And besides, who was likely to take
sufficient interest in Hermione to supply her with the means of
marrying a French nobleman? The flowers ordered in advance by the
Woolsey Hubbards' courier made Garnett wonder if that accomplished
functionary had also wired over to have Miss Newell's settlements drawn
up. But of all the comments hovering on his lips the only one he could
decently formulate was the remark that he supposed Mrs. Newell and her
daughter had come over to see the young man's family and make the final
arrangements.

"Oh, they're made--everything is settled," said Mrs. Newell, looking
him squarely in the eye. "You're wondering, of course, about the
_dot_--Frenchmen never go off their heads to the extent of forgetting
_that;_ or at least their parents don't allow them to."

Garnett murmured a vague assent, and she went on without the least
appearance of resenting