But with this request none of the three appears in any hurry to comply. There is a distinct pause before Cecilia, seeing neither of her seniors shows any signs of relieving her of the burden of explanation, takes that burden upon herself. "The fact is," she says, setting her little rescued packet on the table beside her, and beginning to fan herself, "that Mr. Dashwood, the man to whom I was engaged, has chosen to marry. I am sure"--with a shrug--"no one has the least desire to deny his perfect right to do so; and this morning there arrived by post a bit of his wedding-cake! I suppose he meant it civilly; but father chose to take it as an insult to himself, and though it was addressed to me, he threw it into the fire. I am very fond of wedding-cake; so, as soon as father's back was turned, I fished it out again!" Jim laughs, with more vigour perhaps than heartfelt amusement. "Bravo, Cis! You are a real philosopher! We might all learn a lesson from you." "What have you done with your nice friend?" asked Sybilla languidly. "Amelia, dear, this _couvre-pied_ is slipping off me again. What a sympathetic voice he has! I am sure he has been a great deal with sick people." "I left him putting on his best tie to go out calling. No, calm yourself, Cecilia, not on you; it is not your turn to-day." "Whose turn is it then?" asks the girl, with an interest not at all blunted by the mortifying incident of the cake, which, indeed, she has begun to nibble with apparent relish. Jim hesitates a second--a second during which it strikes him with a shock that he already finds a difficulty in pronouncing Elizabeth Le Marchant's name. He manages to evade the necessity even now by a circumlocution. "I believe it is the Piazza d'Azeglio upon which that luminary is to shine." "Is he going to see that lovely creature to whom you introduced me yesterday?" cries Amelia, with good-natured enthusiasm. "I heard her telling him that she lived in the Piazza d'Azeglio. Oh, Jim, how pretty she is! One ought to pay for being allowed to look at her." Many women, whose plainness is incontestable, are able to be just to their better favoured sisters; but Amelia is more than just--she is lavishly generous. Burgoyne rewards her with an affectionate look--a look such as would make her swear that, beside Miss Le Marchant, as beside Dumain's fair love, "Juno but an Ethiop were!" "She looks as if she had had a history; that always improves a woman's appearance," says Cecilia pensively, holding a fragment of the fateful cake suspended in air, and regarding it with a melancholy eye. "Has she?" "I never asked her."