generation, waited for Mr. Porson to speak. Many and many a time in the
after days did he find reason to congratulate himself upon this superb
reticence--for there are occasions when discretion can amount almost to
the height of genius. Under their relative circumstances, if it had
been he who first suggested this alliance, he and his family must have
remained at the gravest disadvantage, and as for stipulations, well, he
could have made none. But as it chanced it was from poor Porson's lips
that the suggestion came.

Mr. Porson cleared this throat--once, twice, thrice. At the third rasp,
the Colonel became very attentive. He remembered that his brother-in-law
had done exactly the same thing at the very apex of a long-departed
crisis; indeed, just before he offered spontaneously to take over the
mortgages on the Abbey estate.

"You were talking, Colonel," he began, "when Mary came in," and he
paused.

"I daresay," replied the Colonel indifferently, fixing a contemptuous
glance upon some stone mullions of atrocious design.

"About Morris marrying?"

"Oh, yes, so I was! Well?"

"Well--she seems to like him. I know she does indeed. She never talks of
any other young man."

"She? Who?"