t think you will--not you, for
you know...the fact is--don't laugh--but I'm sure nobody can help it--I
have been and gone and got married, Molly. There!"

And, after all, it seemed that she had not come to the right place for
sympathy and understanding. Mary did not laugh, but she stared in a
wooden manner that was even more hurtful to the feelings of the new
wife.

"Well?" she cried brusquely, after a painful pause. "Is there any just
cause or impediment that you know of? You look as if you thought I had
no business to be happy like other people."

"Oh, if you are happy! But I am so surprised. Who is it?"

"Guess," said Deb.

"I could not. I haven't an idea. Some Englishman, of course."

Deb shook her head.

"European, then? Some prince or count, as big as Francie's, or bigger?"

Deb wrinkled a disdainful nose.

"It is no use, Moll; you would not come near it in fifty tries. I'll
tell you--Claud Dalzell."

"What--the deadly enemy!" This time Mrs Goldsworthy did laugh. Deb
joined in.

"Funny, isn't it? I feel"--sarcastically--"like going into fits myself
when I think of it, it is so screamingly absurd. And how it happened I
can't tell you, unless it is that we are fallen into our dotage. I
suppose it must be that."

"You in your dotage!" Mary mocked, with an affectionate sincerity that
was grateful to her sister's ear. "You are the youngest of us all, and
always will be. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass? Upright as a
dart, and your pretty wavy hair--so thick, and scarcely a grey thread
in it! Of course, I don't know how it may be with him; I have not seen
him for such ages--"

"Oh, he is a perfect badger for greyness--not that I ever saw a badger,
by the way. And he walks with a stick, and has dreadful chronic things
the matter with him, from eating and drinking too much all his life,
and never taking enough exercise. Quite the old man, I should have
called him a few months ago. But he is better now."

Mrs Goldsworthy gave a little shudder, and her unsympathetic gravity
returned.

"I see," she sighed. "Your benevolent heart has run away with you, as
usual. His infirmities appealed to your pity. You married him so that
you might nurse and take care of him--"

"Not at all!" Deb broke in warmly. "And don't you talk about his
infirmities in that free-and-easy way; he is no more infirm than you
are. Did I say he was? That was my joke. He always was the handsomest
man that I ever set eyes on, an