ty the Archdeacon hasn't any sense of humour."

"No sense of humour would enable him to see that joke."

"Thormanby," I said, "has been employed all morning in writing letters
and appealing telegrams to Miss Petti-grew; but even if she comes it
will be too late."

"I hope Miss Battersby hasn't been told."

"Not by Lalage. She felt that there would be a certain want of delicacy
about mentioning the subject to her before the Archdeacon had spoken."

My mother sighed.

"I'm very fond of Lalage," she said, "but I sometimes wish she was----"

"That's just what Miss Battersby was saying this morning. I quite agree
with you both that life would be simpler if she was, but of course she
isn't."

"What Lalage wants is some steadying influence."

"Miss Pettigrew," I said, "suggested marriage and babies. I don't think
she mentioned the number of babies, but several would be required."

My mother looked at me in much the same curious way that Miss Pettigrew
did on the afternoon when she and Canon Beresford visited me in
Ballygore. I felt the same unpleasant sense of embarrassment. I finished
my glass of claret hurriedly, and without waiting for coffee, which
would probably have been cold, left the room.

I went about the house and made a collection of the articles I was
likely to want during the afternoon. I got a hammock chair with a leg
rest, four cushions, a pipe, a tin of tobacco, three boxes of matches,
and a novel called "Sword Play." With these in my arms I staggered
across the garden and made for the nook to which I had been looking
forward all day. A greenhouse which is not sacrificed to flowers is
a very pleasant place at certain seasons of the year. In Spring, for
instance, when the sun is shining, I am tempted to go out of doors. But
in Spring there are cold winds which drive me in again. In a greenhouse
the sun is available and the winds are excluded. If the heating
apparatus is out of order, as it fortunately was in the case of my
greenhouse, the temperature is warm without stuffiness. I shut the door,
pulled a tree fern in a heavy pot out of my way, and then found out by
experiment which of the angles of all at which a hammock chair can be
set is the most comfortable. Then I placed my four cushions just where
I like them, one under my head, one to give support to the small of my
back, one under my knees, and one beside my left elbow. I lit my pipe
and put the three boxes of matches in different places, so