"Yes; but we didn't know it then," said the Professor's wife.

"Neither did we," said the Professor. "We supposed that there had never
been anything equal to those hoops and white muslins."

"Thank you, my dear," said his wife, tapping him between the shoulders
with her fan. "Now don't go any further."

"Do you mean about our first meeting here on Class Day?" asked her
husband.

"They'll think so now," said Mrs. Saintsbury patiently, with a playful
threat of consequences in her tone.

"When I first saw the present Mrs. Saintsbury," pursued the Professor--it
was his joking way, of describing her, as if there had been several other
Mrs. Saintsburys--"she was dancing on the green here."

"Ah, they don't dance on the green any more, I hear," sighed Mrs. Pasmer.

"No, they don't," said the other lady; "and I think it's just as well. It
was always a ridiculous affectation of simplicity."

"It must have been rather public," said young Mavering, in a low voice,
to Miss Pasmer.

"It doesn't seem as if it could ever have been in character quite," she
answered.