-"

For once Truda had the grace to blush and look discomfited.

"Oh well, of course, there was always _some one_. I was rather smitten,
but I could not go on caring for a man who had the bad taste to prefer
another girl. And Reggie has been so faithful! He used to send me
chocolates when I was at school in Brighton."

"He is a dear little man--so amiable and cheery. There will be quite a
competition between you as to who shall play off a trick first. I hope
you will ask me down some day. You _will_ be a merry couple," cried
Hope, with such a heart-whole laugh as had not been heard from her for
many a long day.

Miss Bennett regarded her curiously.

"How pleased you seem! Oh yes, I'll ask you. But perhaps you may be"--
her eyes twinkled--"previously engaged."

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

One dark December morning Theo found a letter lying on her plate on the
breakfast-table; not the long, white envelope addressed in her own
writing, which her soul abhorred, but a business-looking epistle,
stamped on which was the magic name of _The Casket Magazine_. She
gulped, tore open the envelope, and read the golden news: "I have read
with much interest your original little story, and have pleasure in
accepting it for the magazine." "Your original little story--have
pleasure in accepting it." Theo gulped again, and laughed with the
tears in her eyes. Oh, how often she had dreamt of this moment! How
she had longed for it, and sickened with dread lest it should never
come! She turned a radiant face upon her sisters, and waved her letter
in the air.

"Hurrah! At last! From Mr Hammond! He has accepted my story, and
calls it very original. A story in the _Casket_! Girls, do you realise
it? Do you realise how you are honoured by sitting at the same table
with _me_!" She laughed again, in tremulous fashion, and Madge bowed
elaborately, coffee-cup in hand.

"Your health, my dear! I look towards you! You have done it this time.
To be a contributor to the _Casket_ is like being hung on the line in
the Academy. Sha'n't I brag about you at the Slade?"

"It is simply splendid, dear. I do hope they will put your name to it.
It will be so disappointing if they don't," said Philippa the tactless.
She was overflowing with sympathy with Theo in her success, and yet,
poor dear! she must needs call attention to the one existing drawback;
for the _Casket_ was as conservative as it was hig