"Miss Grosvenor has invited Mr Ernest and me to tea, and to go without
a representative of Mrs Grundy, I believe, is not correct in the
social life of Noonoon."

Eweword laughed; but his face fell, and his reply showed him less
obtuse than he appeared on the surface, seeing he was the first and
only person to see through my matchmaking tactics.

"Touting for the red-haired bagman," he said, as Ernest could be seen
swinging up the path.

"Supposing I am, what then?" I asked, regarding him with a level
glance, and feeling more respect for his intelligence than I had
heretofore experienced.

"Oh, well, I suppose all is fair in some things."

He would not say _love_, as that would have admitted too much, and a
lover admitting his passion and a drunkard confessing his disease are
exceptions that prove the rule.

His remark was uttered with a broad good nature that would lead him to
do and leave undone great things. In a desire to please the present
girl he was not above saying he had been "pulling the leg" of the one
absent, but he would also be capable of standing aside when he felt
deeply--as deeply as he could feel--to allow a better man sea-room;
and he was further capable of sufficient humility to think there could
be a better man than himself, or so I adjudged him, and being the only
narrator of this, the only history in which he is likely to receive
mention, this delineation of his character will have to remain
unchallenged.

Ernest had a geranium in his button-hole, and looked more immaculately
spruce than ever, and even his red hair could not obliterate the fact
of his being a goodly sight, and as such grandma recognised him.

"That's a fine sturdy chap," she afterwards observed. "It's a pity he
ain't got somethink to do to keep him out of mischief. Is he a
unemployed? He don't look like one of these Johnnies that has nothink
to do but hang around a street corner and smoke a cigarette."

The two young men measured glances every whit as critically as girls
do under similar conditions, and then equally as casually made
reference to the weather. Ernest was somewhat overshadowed by Eweword,
as the latter was superior in size and cast of features, being fully
six feet, while Ernest was not more than five feet nine inches; but as
a girl very rarely, if she has a choice, cares most for the handsomest
of her admirers, I was not in the least cast down about this.

When it was time for me to depart, Ernest rose to