"Such a lot of them?"

"He has so many female friends--in the most varied circles."

"Well, we can close round her then," I returned; "for I on my side know,
or used to know, her young man."

"Her intended?"--she had a light of relief for this.

"The very one she's going out to. He can't, by the way," it occurred to
me, "be very young now."

"How odd it sounds--her muddling after him!" said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

I was going to reply that it wasn't odd if you knew Mr. Porterfield, but
I reflected that that perhaps only made it odder. I told my companion
briefly who he was--that I had met him in the old Paris days, when I
believed for a fleeting hour that I could learn to paint, when I lived
with the _jeunesse des ecoles_; and her comment on this was simply:
"Well, he had better have come out for her!"

"Perhaps so. She looked to me as she sat there as if, she might change
her mind at the last moment."

"About her marriage?

"About sailing. But she won't change now."

Jasper came back, and his mother instantly challenged him. "Well, _are_