"A pretty tough, dull affair marriage," he said to himself, reminded
once more of Theodora by treading on a white rose in the station. "Hope
to Heavens Sarah prepared her for it a bit." Then he got into a _fiacre_
and drove to the hotel, where he and the two remaining Misses Fitzgerald
were living in the style of their forefathers.

Josiah Brown's valet, Mr. Toplington, who knew the world, had engaged
rooms for the happy couple at the Grand Hotel. "We'll go to the Ritz on
our way back," he decided, "but at first, in case there's scenes and
tears, it's better to be a number than a name." Mademoiselle Henriette,
the freshly engaged French maid, quite agreed with him. The Grand, she
said, was "_plus convenable pour une lune de Miel_--" Lune de Miel!




II


It was a year later before Theodora saw her family again. A very severe
attack of bronchitis, complicated by internal catarrh, prostrated Josiah
Brown in the first days of their marriage, and had turned her into a
superintendent nurse for the next three months; by that time a winter at
Hyères was recommended by the best physicians, and off they started.

Hyères, with a semi-invalid, a hospital nurse, and quantities of
medicine bottles and draught-protectors, is not the ideal place one
reads of in guide-books. Theodora grew to hate the sky and the blue
Mediterranean. She used to sit on her balcony at Costebelle and gaze at