During the next three or four weeks I did not see Tom quite as often as usual; he was very busy, he told me; occupied, I supposed, with Miss Elliston, whom I saw with him in the gardens where I was taking an airing in a Bath chair one pleasant morning in April. Mrs. Trevyllan was walking by my side, and first called my attention to them coming straight toward us, and so near that to escape by turning into a by-path was impossible. Tom saw me at the same moment, and I fancied there was a look of annoyance on his face as if the meeting were one he would have avoided. But it was too late now. We were very near each other, and wishing to spare him the necessity of recognition, if possible, I pulled my blue hood closely about my face and pretended to be very much interested in a bed of crocuses; but Tom was not inclined to pass me by, and before I quite knew what I was doing, I had been presented to Miss Elliston, and she was looking at me, and I was looking at her, and each was undoubtedly forming an opinion of the other not altogether complimentary. Mine of her was: Fine-looking, stylish, very stylish, but cold as an iceberg, selfish, smooth and deep, and if it be true that in the case of every married couple there is one who loves and one who permits it, Tom will be the one who loves, and she the passive recipient. I should as soon think of receiving a caress from an iceberg as from that calm, quiet, self-possessed woman. Poor Tom, with his warm, loving heart, and demonstrative nature! This was my opinion of Miss Elliston, while hers of me, I fancy, was something as follows: “That little dowdy, faded old maid, Mr. Gordon’s cousin! and does Lady Fairfax think I’ll ever consent to her living with me as a poor relation?” I thought I read all this in her eyes, which scanned me so curiously, while she tried to be agreeable and said she was glad to see me; that she had been coming to call upon me for a long time, but really her time was not her own, and she wished I would come to see her with Mrs. Trevyllan, “who, naughty girl, owes me a party call,” she added, playfully, and shaking her finger at the “naughty girl,” she made a movement to pass on. Tom said very little, and I felt he was glad when the interview was over, and I was being trundled along the road further and further from him and his _fiancee_. She was that, I almost knew, and when three weeks later, he told me of a place on Finchley Road, Hampstead, which was for sale, and which he meant to buy, I was sure of it, and asked him when it was to be. “The wedding, you mean?” and he looked so quizzically at me. “I’d like it as soon as the middle of June. How do you suppose that would suit her?”