t. So that the story was long delayed, and
when at length it came it did not amount to much.

"There was once an old man who gave a dinner-party."

"That was daddy," Elinor said, from the arm of the chair where she was
now sitting with her shoulder against his.

"It was on the occasion of the marriage of his only daughter to a
handsome and agreeable young man, the most eligible parti of the
neighbourhood."

"That was you and me," Nell explained, contentedly. "Well, you are a
vain old boy!"

"No interruptions, please," Ted went on, pulling at his pipe. "Although
the occasion was one of rejoicing, there was a melancholy circumstance
connected with it which cast a shadow over the otherwise
sunshiny--'m--sunshine of the scene."

"You're as bad as a newspaper. Go on softly, or you'll never keep it
up. I can't think what's coming."

"The guests sat down thirteen to table----"

"Well, so they did!" Nell recalled. "Now, that is really very clever of
you, Ted. I'd quite forgotten. I was horribly frightened then--but I'd
as clean as clean forgotten!"

"Well, there you are!" Ted said. "There's your moral."

"Where? Where?"

"Why, here we are, all alive and well and kicking; you and me, your
daddy and mummy, your uncles and your cousins and your aunts."

"But supposing one of us wasn't!" Nell remarked sagely. "When you ask
your thirteen to dinner and one dies it must be horrid; and I should
think your guests might--might bring an action against you."

She was holding the hand he had just put up to meet hers, which was
round his neck now, and a thought suddenly struck her. "But the year
isn't up yet, Ted," she said.

The dinner had been an epoch in their young lives; they both remembered
the date was the eighteenth of October. He pointed to the silver
calendar on the chimney-piece, to which the parlour-maid attended.
"This is the eighteenth again," Ted said. "There aren't two eighteenths
of October in one year."

Elinor was back in memories of the event. "Do you remember Aunt Carrie,
and how ill she was? At the very verge of the grave. And how afraid
mummy was she should notice there were thirteen? Now, here she is as
well as any of us, and going to get married again. Ah! What are you
doing, Ted?

"No, Ted! Oh, no, please! My hair will come down!"

"I'm getting another hairpin."

It was such pretty hair, he was always pleased to see it hanging about
her ears, as had been its fashion when he had first met her-