of any recipe myself for being happy ever after marriage, except not
expecting it."

"Or keeping out of it altogether," added Joan.

"Ever spent a day at the Home for Destitute Gentlewomen at East Sheen?"
demanded Madge.

"Not yet," admitted Joan. "May have to, later on."

"It ought to be included in every woman's education," Madge continued.
"It is reserved for spinsters of over forty-five. Susan Fleming wrote an
article upon it for the _Teacher's Friend_; and spent an afternoon and
evening there. A month later she married a grocer with five children.
The only sound suggestion for avoiding trouble that I ever came across
was in a burlesque of the _Blue Bird_. You remember the scene where the
spirits of the children are waiting to go down to earth and be made into
babies? Someone had stuck up a notice at the entrance to the gangway:
'Don't get born. It only means worry.'"

Flossie had her dwelling-place in a second floor bed-sitting-room of a
lodging house in Queen's Square, Bloomsbury; but the drawing-room floor
being for the moment vacant, Flossie had persuaded her landlady to let
her give her party there; it seemed as if fate approved of the idea. The
room was fairly full when Joan arrived. Flossie took her out on the
landing, and closed the door behind them.

"You will be honest with me, won't you?" pleaded Flossie, "because it's
so important, and I don't seem able to think for myself. As they say, no
man can be his own solicitor, can he? Of course I like him, and all