"My girls always marry!" Miss Jones was wont to say with a
complacent smile, and mothers advertised it.

Agatha had been an apt pupil. She came away from Miss Jones a
finished article. Miss Jones had indeed looked in vain for Agatha's
name in that right-hand column of the Morning Post where fashionable
arrangements are noted, and in the first column of the Times, where
further social events have precedence. But that was entirely
Agatha's fault. She came, and she saw, but she had not hitherto
seen anything worth conquering. So many of her school friends had
married on the impulse of the moment for mere sentimental reasons,
remaining as awful and harassed warnings in suburban retreats where
rents are moderate and the census on the flow. If there was one
thing Miss Jones despised more than love in a cottage, it was that
intangible commodity in a suburban villa.

Agatha, in a word, meant to do well for herself, and she was dimly
grateful to her mother for having foreseen this situation and
provided for it by a suitable education.

She was probably thinking over the matter while she brushed her
hair, for she was deeply absorbed. There was a knock at the door--a
timid, deprecatory knock.

"Oh, come in!" cried Agatha.

The door opened and disclosed Mrs. Ingham-Baker, stout and cringing,
in a ludicrous purple dressing-gown.

"May I come and warm myself at your fire, dear?" she inquired