people. Of course, one doesn't like to talk about things until there are
things to talk about."

"All the more reason why she shouldn't get herself talked about."

"That is exactly what I feel."

Mr. Stanley took the letter and stood with it in his hand thoughtfully
for a time. "I'd give anything," he remarked, "to see our little Vee
happily and comfortably married."

He gave the note to the parlormaid the next morning in an inadvertent,
casual manner just as he was leaving the house to catch his London
train. When Ann Veronica got it she had at first a wild, fantastic idea
that it contained a tip.


Part 5


Ann Veronica's resolve to have things out with her father was not
accomplished without difficulty.

He was not due from the City until about six, and so she went and played
Badminton with the Widgett girls until dinner-time. The atmosphere at
dinner was not propitious. Her aunt was blandly amiable above a certain
tremulous undertow, and talked as if to a caller about the alarming
spread of marigolds that summer at the end of the garden, a sort of
Yellow Peril to all the smaller hardy annuals, while her father brought
some papers to table and presented himself as preoccupied with them. "It