s." Of course I shouldn't dream of having anyone you didn't
thoroughly like the look of.'

'Do you think,' asked Emmeline doubtfully, 'that we should quite
_do_? "Well-connected family"--'

'My dear girl! Surely we have nothing to be ashamed of?'

'Of course not, Clarence. But--and "pleasant society." What about
that?'

'Your society is pleasant enough, I hope,' answered Mumford,
gracefully. 'And the Fentimans--'

This was the only family with whom they were intimate at Sutton.
Nice people; a trifle sober, perhaps, and not in conspicuously
flourishing circumstances; but perfectly presentable.

'I'm afraid--' murmured Emmeline, and stopped short. 'As you say,'
she added presently, 'this is someone very well off. "Terms not so
much a consideration"--'

'Well, I tell you what--there can be no harm in dropping a note. The
kind of note that commits one to nothing, you know. Shall I write
it, or will you?'

They concocted it together, and the rough draft was copied by
Emmeline. She wrote a very pretty hand, and had no difficulty
whatever about punctuation. A careful letter, calculated for the eye
of refinement; it supplied only the indispensable details of the
writer's position, and left terms for future adjustment.

'It's so easy to explain to people,' said Mumford, with an air of
satisfaction, when he came back from the post, 'that you wanted a
companion. As I'm quite sure you do. A friend coming to stay with
you for a time--that's how I should put it.'

A week passed, and there came no reply. Mumford pretended not to
care much, but Emmeline imagined a new anxiety in his look.

'Do be frank with me, dear,' she urged one evening. 'Are we living
too--'

He answered her with entire truthfulness. Ground for serious
uneasiness there was none whatever; he could more than make ends
meet, and had every reason to hope it would always be so; but it
would relieve his mind if the end of the year saw a rather larger
surplus. He was now five-and-thirty--getting on in life. A man ought
to make provision beyond the mere life-assurance--and so on.

'Shall I look out for other advertisements?' asked Emmeline.

'Oh, dear, no! It was just that particular one that caught my eye.'

Next morning arrived a letter, signed 'Louise E. Derrick.' The
writer said she had been waiting to compare and think over some two
hundred answers to her advertisement. 'It's really too absurd. How
can I remember them all? But I liked yours as soon