"Miss Fanny," said Susannah, opening the door an inch. Miss Lambert left the room hurriedly and closed the door. There was something in Susannah's voice that told her "something had happened." "He's downstairs in the library." "Oh, my goodness!" murmured Fanny with a frown; visions of Mr Hancock in all the positions of love-making rose before her. "_Why_ didn't you say I was out?" "I did, miss, and he said he'd wait." Fanny went downstairs and into the library, and there before her stood Mr Bevan on the hearthrug. Her face brightened wonderfully. "I _am_ so glad--when did you come? Guess who I thought it was? I thought it was Mr Hancock." "Hancock?" said Charles, who had held her outstretched hand just a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. "Oh, that affair is all over. I stopped the action--by the way, I believe old Hancock's cracked; sent your father a most extraordinary wire, saying I was--what was it he said?--a duck, I think." "Where have you seen father?" "Why, I was staying in the same house with him down in Sussex for a day." "At Miss Pursehouse's?" "Yes." "How awfully funny! Did he tell you?" "What?" "That he's engaged to be married to Miss Pursehouse. I had the letter this morning--oh, of course he couldn't have told you, for he only proposed yesterday afternoon. He wrote in an awful hurry, just a line to say he's 'engaged and done for.' Isn't he funny? There was another man after her, and father says he has 'cut him out.' Do tell me all about them; did you see the other man? and what did you think of father--isn't he a dear?" "Yes," said Mr Bevan abstractedly. He was flabbergasted with the news and irritated, although he was not in love, and never had been in love, with Miss Pursehouse, still, it was distinctly unpleasant to think that he had been "cut out." "I thought he seemed fond of her in Paris," continued Fanny, "but one never can tell. I'm glad he got the telegram all right. It was I that sent it. I was going to the Zoo with Mr Hancock----" "I beg your pardon?" said Mr Bevan. "I was going to the Zoo with Mr Hancock. Oh, I have such a lot to tell you, but promise me first you'll never tell." "Yes." "Well--guess what's happened?" "Can't think." "Well, Mr Hancock proposed to me--but you won't tell, will you?" Mr Bevan gasped. "_Hancock!_" "Yes; he wrote such a funny, queer little letter. It made me cry." "_Hancock!_" "Yes, but you've promised never to tell. Every one seems to have been proposing to me in the last three months, and I wish they'd stop--I wish they'd stop," said Miss Lambert, half-talking to herself and half to Bevan, half-laughing and half-crying all at the same time; "it's got on my nerves. James will be the next--it's like the influenza, it seems in the air----" "I came to-day," said Mr Bevan with awful and preternatural gravity, "to speak to you, Fanny--to tell you that ever since I saw you first, I have thought of nobody else----"