Lord Tatham has been here--and _nothing_
happens. And all the time Lydia keeps telling me she's not in love with
him, and doesn't mean to marry him. But what's _he_ doing?"

Susan was looking dishevelled and highly strung. She had spent the
afternoon in writing the fifth act of a tragedy on Belisarius; and it
was more than a fortnight since Mr. Weston, the young vicar of Dunscale,
had been to call. Her cheeks were sallow; her dark eyes burnt behind
their thick lashes.

"Suppose he's done it?" she said gloomily.

Mrs. Penfold gave a little shriek.

"Done what? What do you mean?"

"He's proposed--and she's said 'No.'"

"Lord Tatham! Oh, Susy!" wailed Mrs. Penfold; "you don't think that?"

"Yes, I do," said Susan, with resolution. "And now she's letting him down
gently."

"And never said a word to you or me! Oh, Susy, she couldn't be so
unkind."

Mrs. Penfold's pink and white countenance, on which age had as yet laid
so light a finger, showed the approach of tears. She and Susy were
sitting in a leafy recess of the garden; Lydia had gone after tea to see
old Dobbs and his daughter.

"That's all this _friendship_ business, she's so full of," said Susy. "If
she'd accepted him, she'd have told us, of course. Now he's plucked as a
lover, and readmitted as a friend. And one doesn't betray a friend's
secrets--even to one's relations. There it is."

"I never heard such nonsense," cried Mrs. Penfold. "I used to try that
kind of thing--making friends with young men. It was no use at all. They
always proposed."

Susan's state of tension--caused by the fact that her Fifth Act had been
a veritable shambles--broke up in laughter. She couldn't help kissing her
mother.

"You're priceless, darling, you really are. I wouldn't say anything to
her about it, if I were you," she added, more seriously. "I shall attack
her, of course, some day."

"But she still goes on seeing him," said Mrs. Penfold, pursuing her own
bewildered thoughts.

"That's her theory. She sees him--they write to each other--they probably
call each other 'Lydia' and 'Harry.'"

"Susy!"

"Why not? Christian names are very common nowadays."

"In my youth if any girl called a young man by his Christian name, it
meant she was engaged to him," said Mrs. Penfold with energy, her look
clearing. "And if they do call each other 'Lydia' and 'Harry' you may say
what you like, Susy, but she will be engaged to him some day--if not now,
in the winter, or some ti