So, from one day to another Mrs. Portico announced that she was really at last about to sail for foreign lands (her doctor having told her that if she did n’t look out she would get too old to enjoy them), and that she had invited that robust Miss Gressie, who could stand so long on her feet, to accompany her. There was joy in the house of Gressie at this announcement, for though the danger was over, it was a great general advantage to Georgina to go, and the Gressies were always elated at the prospect of an advantage. There was a danger that she might meet Mr. Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn’t seem likely that Mrs. Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had taken it into her head to favor their love affair, she would have done it frankly, and Georgina would have been married by this time. Her arrangements were made as quickly as her decision had been--or rather had appeared--slow; for this concerned those agile young men down town. Georgina was perpetually at her house; it was understood in Twelfth Street that she was talking over her future travels with her kind friend. Talk there was, of course to a considerable degree; but after it was settled they should start nothing more was said about the motive of the journey. Nothing was said, that is, till the night before they sailed; then a few words passed between them. Georgina had already taken leave of her relations in Twelfth Street, and was to sleep at Mrs. Portico’s in order to go down to the ship at an early hour. The two ladies were sitting together in the firelight, silent, with the consciousness of corded luggage, when the elder one suddenly remarked to her companion that she seemed to be taking a great deal upon herself in assuming that Raymond Benyon wouldn’t force her hand. _He_ might choose to acknowledge his child, if she didn’t; there were promises and promises, and many people would consider they had been let off when circumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr. Benyon more than she thought. “I know what I am about,” Georgina answered. “There is only one promise, for him. I don’t know what you mean by circumstances being altered.” “Everything seems to me to be changed,” poor Mrs. Portico murmured, rather tragically. “Well, he is n’t, and he never will! I am sure of him,--as sure as that I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I had n’t known he was a man of his word?” “You have chosen him well, my dear,” said Mrs. Portico, who by this time was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence. “Of course I have chosen him well! In such a matter as this he will be perfectly splendid.” Then suddenly, “Perfectly splendid,--that’s why I cared for him!” she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.