gion--not deeply, I mean.
But it is a real thing with him, and I'm learning. You see, Cicely, we
are rather a different engaged couple from most, although we don't
appear so to the world at large. Outside our two selves, George is a
coming man, and I am a lucky girl to be making such a match."

"I'm glad you have told me about it all," Cicely said. "It must be
splendid to be looking forward to helping your husband in all the good
things he is going to do."

"Oh, it is. I am ever so happy. And George is the dearest soul--so kind
and thoughtful, for all his cleverness. Cicely, you must meet him."

"I should love to," said Cicely simply. "I never meet anybody
interesting down here." Her incipient sense of revolt had died down for
the time; she was young enough to live in the present, if the present
was agreeable enough, as it was with this mild, unwonted, holiday stir
about her. She only felt, vaguely, a little sorry for herself.

"It is lovely," said Beatrice; "but I own I shouldn't care for it all
day and every day. It is rather jolly to feel you're in the middle of
things."

"Oh, I know it is," said Cicely, laughing. "_I_ was in the middle of
things in London, and I enjoyed it immensely."

Beatrice's engagement was the subject of another conversation that
evening. When the party got back from the picnic, Cicely set out for the
dower-house. Nobody had been near the old aunts that day; it was seven
o'clock, and there was just time to pay them a short visit. Mr. Birket
was in the hall as she passed through, and she asked him to go with her.

"I should like to pay my respects to those two admirable ladies," he
said. "They make me feel that I am nobody, which is occasionally good
for the soul of man."

"Ah," said Cicely, as they went across the garden together, "you are a
wicked Radical, you see, and you want to disestablish their beloved
Church."

"Do I?" said Mr. Birket. "How truly shocking of me. My dear, don't
believe everything you hear. I am sure that my chief fault is that I
don't possess land. Cicely, how much land must you possess if you really
want to hold your head up? Would a hundred acres or so do the trick? I
suppose not. Two hundred acres, now! I might run to that if the land was
cheap."

"Two hundred acres, I should think, uncle," said Cicely, "with a
manor-house, and, say, a home farm. And if you could get the advowson of
a living, it would be all to the good."

"Would it? Thank you for telling