she had it in her mind always to inquire, and whose name somehow
always slipped past, was Miss Anne Valery.

All this conversation--wherein the young lover bore himself much more
bravely than in regular "love-making"--a manufacture at which he was not
_au fait_ at all, caused the morning to pass swiftly by. Agatha thought
if all her life were to move so smoothly and pleasantly, she need never
repent trusting its current to the guidance of Nathanael Harper. And
when, soon after he departed, Emma Thorny-croft came in, all smiles,
wonderings, and congratulations, Miss Bowen was in a mood cheerful
enough to look the happy _fiancee_ to the life; besides womanly and
tender enough to hang round her friend's neck, testifying her old
regard--until Master James testified his also, and likewise his general
sympathy in the scene, by flying at them both with bread-and-buttery
fingers.

"Ah, Agatha, there is nothing like being a wife and mother! you see what
happiness lies before you," cried the affectionate soul, hugging her
unruly son and heir.

Miss Bowen slightly shuddered; being of a rather different opinion;
which, however, she had the good taste to keep to herself, since
occasionally a slight misgiving arose that either she was unreasonably
harsh, or that the true type of infantile loveableness did not exist in
the young Thornycrofts.

As a private penance for possible injustice, and also out of the general
sunniness of her contented heart, she was particularly kind to Master
James that day, and moreover promised to spend the next at the Botanic
Gardens--not the terrific Zoological!--with Emma and the babies.

"And," added the young matron, with a gracious satisfaction, "you
understand, my dear, we shall--now and always--be most happy to see Mr.
Harper in the evening."

CHAPTER VII.

Whether Mr. Harper, being a rather proud and reserved individual, was
not "so happy to be seen in the evening" as an attendant planet openly
following his sphered idol, or whether, like all true lovers, he was
very jealous over the lightest public betrayal of love's sanctity, most
certainly he did not appear until he had been expected for at least two
hours. Even then his manner was somewhat constrained. Emma's smiling,
half-jesting congratulations were nipped in the bud; she felt as she
afterwards declared--"quite frightened at him."

Agatha, too, met him rather meekly, fearing lest she had led him into
a position distasteful to h