nator, had been very sweet and friendly in their offers to me
to join the donkey-riding party. But for some reason I felt I wanted to
be quiet. I had one of those "aloof" moods which I suppose everybody
knows. One feels not "out of tune" with one's surroundings, and
disinclined for conversation. The girls and Miss Vi Vassity and my
mistress and the one man at the picnic, namely, Mr. Jessop, all seemed
to me like gaily coloured pictures out of some vivacious book. Something
to look at! After the noisy, laughing lunch, when the party had broken
up into chattering groups of twos and threes, and were walking farther
down the cliffs, I felt as if I were glad that for a few minutes this
gay and amusing book could be closed. I didn't go with any of them. I
pleaded tiredness. I said I would stay behind and have a little rest on
the turf, in the shadow of Miss Vi Vassity's bigger car that had brought
over the luncheon things.

The party melted away. I watched them disappear in a sort of moving
frieze between the thymy turf and the hot, blue sky. Then I made a couch
for myself of one of the motor-rugs and a gay-coloured cushion or two. I
had taken off my black hat and I curled myself up comfortably in a long
reverie. My thoughts drifted at last towards that subject which they
accuse girls' thoughts (quite unjustly!) of never leaving.

The subject of getting married! Was I or was I not going to get married?
Should I say "Yes" or "No" to Mr. Brace when that steady and reliable
and desirable young Englishman returned from Paris, and came to me for
his answer? Probably "Yes." There seemed no particular reason why it
should not be "Yes." I quite like him, I had always rather liked him. As
for him, he adored me in his honest way. I could hear again the
unmistakable earnestness in his voice as he repeated the time-honoured
sentiment, "You are the one girl in the world for me!"

Why should I even laugh a little to myself because he used a rather
"obvious" expression?--an expression that "everybody" uses. If you
come to that, nobody else has ever used it to me! And I don't believe
that he, Mr. Reginald Brace, has ever used it before. It would not
surprise me at all if he had never made love, real, respectful,
with-a-view-to-matrimony love, to any other girl but me.

Very likely he's scarcely even flirted with anybody else.

Something tells me that I should be the very first woman in this man's
life.

Now isn't that a beautiful idea?