in mild exasperation, shook her
head, wrung her hands, but could find nothing to answer.

"I thought so," said Nettie, with a little outburst of jubilee; "that
is how it always happens to abstract people. Put the practical question
before them, and they have not a word to say to you. Freddy, cut the
grass with the scissors, don't cut my trimmings; they are for your own
frock, you little savage. If I were to say it was my duty and all that
sort of stuff, you would understand me, Miss Wodehouse; but one only
says it is one's duty when one has something disagreeable to do; and I
am not doing anything disagreeable," added the little heroine, flashing
those eyes which had confused Edward Rider--those brilliant, resolute,
obstinate eyes, always with the smile of youth, incredulous of evil,
lurking in them, upon her bewildered adviser. "I am living as I like to
live."

There was a pause--at least there was a pause in the argument, but not
in Nettie's talk, which ran on in an eager stream, addressed to Freddy,
Johnnie, things in general. Miss Wodehouse pondered over the handle
of her parasol. She had absolutely nothing to say; but, thoroughly
unconvinced and exasperated at Nettie's logic, could not yet retire from
the field.

"It is all very well to talk just now," said the gentle woman at last,
retiring upon that potent feminine argument; "but, Nettie, think! If you
were to marry----"

Miss Wodehouse paused, appalled by the image she herself had conjured
up.

"Marrying is really a dreadful business, anyhow," she added, with a
sigh; "so few people, you know, can, when they might. There is poor Mr
Wentworth, who brought me here first; unless he gets preferment, poor
fellow----. And there is Dr Rider. Things are very much changed from
what they used to be in my young days."

"Is Dr Rider in the same dilemma? I suppose, of course, you mean Dr
Edward," cried Nettie, with a little flash of mischievous curiosity.
"Why? He has nobody but himself. I should like to know why he can't
marry--that is, if anybody would have him--when he pleases. Tell me; you
know he is my brother-in-law."

Miss Wodehouse had been thinking of Bessie Christian. She paused, partly
for Dr Rider's sake, partly because it was quite contrary to decorum,
to suppose that Bessie, now Mrs Brown, might possibly a year ago
have married somebody else. She faltered a little in her answer. "A
professional man never marries till he has a position," said Miss
Wodeh