“I should think not,” Florence said virtuously. “Do you know, Walter, once or twice it has struck me that perhaps he won’t live; he doesn’t look strong, and he is always complaining. Aunt Anne said that he wanted constant change of air.” “Oh yes, I remember she said Liphook was ‘beneficial’ to him.” “If he died she would have her allowance, and be free.” “No such luck,” said Walter. “Besides, if he died, there would be nowhere for him to go to—he’d have to come back again. Heaven wouldn’t have him, and, after all, he isn’t quite bad enough for the devil to use his coals upon.” “Walter, you mustn’t talk in that way—you mustn’t, indeed;” and she put her hand over his mouth. “All right,” he said, struggling to get free; “I won’t do it again.” Mr. Fisher duly arrived the next afternoon. He was a little breathless, though he carefully tried to conceal it, and wore the air of deference, but decision, which he always thought the right one to assume to women. With much gravity he and Florence set out to buy the wedding-present. It resolved itself into a silver butter-dish with a silver cow on the lid, though Florence tried hard to make him choose a set of apostle spoons. “A butter-dish will be much more useful, my dear lady.” “It will be very useful,” Florence echoed, though she feared that Ethel would be a little disappointed when she saw the cow. “And now,” said Mr. Fisher, in a benevolent voice, as they left the silversmith’s in Bond Street, “we are close to Gunters—if you would do me the honour to eat an ice?” “I will do you the honour with great pleasure.” And she thought to herself, “His manner really is like Aunt Anne’s this afternoon. If she had only married him instead of that horrid Mr. Wimple, we would have called him uncle with pleasure.” She sat eating her very large strawberry ice, while he tasted his at intervals, as if he were rather afraid of it. “Did the white cockatoo die?” she asked. He almost started, he was so surprised at the question. “The white cockatoo?” “You spoke of it last year—that night when Mrs. Baines dined with us.” “I remember now,” he said solemnly. “Yes; it died, Mrs. Hibbert. For five years it was perhaps my most intimate friend, and the companion of my solitude.” “Why did it die?” “It pulled a door-mat to pieces, and we fear it swallowed some of the fibre. My housekeeper, who is a severe woman, beat it with her gloves, and it did not recover.” He spoke as if he were recounting a tragedy, and became so silent that Florence felt she had ventured on an unlucky topic. But it was always rather difficult to make conversation with Mr. Fisher when she was alone with him; there were so few things he cared to discuss with a woman. Politics he considered beyond her, on literary matters he thought she could form no opinion, and society was a frivolity, it was as well not to encourage her to consider too much. Suddenly a happy thought struck her.