"And therefore, Hughie, I counsel you to escape all future unhappiness by marrying Joey as soon as you get home--a consummation to which, as you will probably have gathered by this time, the whole of these laboured and transparent testamentary dispositions of mine are directed. I have left the child entirely in your hands. Marry her as quickly as you can, and then I shall know for certain, whatever my state of existence at the time, that the two people whom I care for most on earth are both booked for a life of perfect happiness. I could not wish a man a sweeter wife or a woman a better husband. "Forgive my clumsy methods, but you know I mean well.--Yours, "JAMES MARRABLE." Hughie folded up this characteristic document and put it carefully back in his pocket. Then he lit his pipe and reflected. He did not altogether agree with the tone of his uncle's letter, but he knew in his heart that it contained a good deal of truth. He was ready to marry and settle down, but like most of his race he contemplated the preliminary reconnoitring, the manoeuvring for position, and the elaborate enveloping movements which seem inseparable from a modern matrimonial engagement, with something akin to terror. At the same time, it seemed a tame thing to come home and marry a bread-and-butter miss out of the schoolroom to gratify the shade of a departed relative. The train slowed down. They were approaching Midfield Junction, where he must change. Hughie took his feet down from the opposite cushions and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "We'll see," he said. "I must have a look at Joey first. Pretty children so often grow up plain. Perhaps it would be simplest to marry her, but there's no hurry. I'm home for a rest, and I'm not going to bother myself. I have roughed it for nine years. Now I'm going to settle down and have an easy time of it." He was never more mistaken in his life. CHAPTER XII A CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERE Miss Joan Gaymer sat in a Windsor chair on the landing outside the bathroom door at Manors. It was half-past eight in the morning--an hour when traffic outside bathroom doors is apt to be congested. Miss Gaymer was wrapped in a bluish-grey kimono, which, whether by accident or design,--I fear there is very little doubt about it, really,--exactly matched the colour of her eyes. At the same time it failed to conceal the fact--_horresco referens_--that she was still attired in what American haberdashers call "slumber-wear." Her slim bare feet were encased in red slippers, one of which dangled precariously from her right big toe, and her hair hung down her back in two tightly screwed but not unbecoming pigtails. At present she was engaged in a heated altercation with two gentlemen for right of entry into the bathroom.