ediately, for at first she
didn't understand him, and answered placidly: "It depends on who."

"Mr. Fenwick, for instance!"

"Yes, but who for? And stepfather to step-what? Stepdaughter or
stepson?"

"Yourself, little goose! _You_ would be the stepdaughter."

Sally was then so taken aback that she could make nothing of it, but
stood in a cloud of mystification. The major had to help her. "How
would you like your mother to marry Mr. Fenwick?" He was one of those
useful people who never _finesse_, who let you know point-blank where
you are, and to whom you feel so grateful for being unfeeling. While
others there be who keep you dancing about in suspense, while they
break things gently, and all the while are scoring up a little account
against you for considerateness.

Sally's bewilderment, however, recognised one thing distinctly--that
the Major's inquiry was not to get, but to give, information. He
didn't the least want to know what _she_ thought; he was only working
to give her a useful tip. So she would take her time about answering.
She took it, looking as grave as a little downy owl-tot. Meanwhile,
to show there was no bad feeling, she went and sat candidly on the
fossil's knee, and attended to his old whiskers and moustache.

"Major dear!" said she presently.

"What, my child?"

"Wouldn't they make an awfully handsome couple?" The Major replied,
"Handsome is as handsome does," and seemed to suggest that questions
of this sort belonged to a pre-fossilised condition of existence.

"Now, Major dear, why not admit it when you know it's true? You know
quite well they would make a lovely couple. Just fancy them going up
the aisle at St. Satisfax! It would be like mediaeval Kings and
Queens." For Sally was still in that happy phase of girlhood in which
a marriage is a wedding, _et praeterea aliquid_, but not much. "But,"
she continued, "I couldn't give up any of mamma--no, not so much as
_that_--if she was to marry twenty Mr. Fenwicks." As the quantity
indicated was the smallest little finger-end that could be checked off
with a thumb-nail, the twenty husbands would have come in for a very
poor allowance of matrimony. The Major didn't seem to think the method
of estimation supplied a safe ground for discussion, and allowed it to
lapse.

"I may be quite wrong, you know, my dear," said he. "I dare say I'm
only an old fool. So we won't say anything to mamma, will us, little
woman?"

"I don't know, Major dear. I