For supposing an engagement were stripped of all its glamour of importance? Yes, my dears! Take away the delight of discussing, with other girls, the possibilities of finest nainsook and torchon. Take away the chance of growing positively left-handed from showing off “his” ring. Take away the joy of being, instead of an unattended wallflower at dances and parties, always more or less of a guarded treasure. Take away that feeling of being at one and the same time much younger, much older and much better-looking. Take away the comforting conviction that _now_ you needn’t fret about what’s to become of you when you grow _passée_ and “long in the tooth,” as Major Montresor unkindly calls various ex-favourites of his own. Take all those “extras” away—and what remains of your pride and joy in HIM alone? There’s a sum for the “really” engaged girl. I can’t help feeling I can guess how it would work out in—say, four cases out of six! Perhaps I’m wrong.... Perhaps the whole six of them would still go on feeling that _their_ unparalleled engagement had caused the sun to rise upon a new heaven and a brand-new earth. But it’s odds, long odds, against any one of the six having an “affair” in the least like—_mine_. And the curate went on reading out names. “_Also_——” “_Between William Waters, bachelor, of this parish_,” breathed his younger sister in a gusty whisper, “_and Nancy Monica Trant, spinster_—of the parish of what, Nancy?” “S-sh! Theo!” I whispered, still wondering about those banns.... Would it come to that? Would my employer feel himself obliged, before our twelve-months’ contract was up, to let those banns be actually published? “_If any of you know any just cause or impediment why these persons should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony_,” concluded the curate’s voice, “_ye are to declare it_.” What in the world _was_ Mr. Waters going to “declare” about it to his family when we reached that point? What just cause or impediment (except the real ones) would he choose to “announce” as the bar to our getting married? Or would he, just as he did this morning at breakfast, leave all explanations to _me_, and reward me with a grateful look when I’d achieved them? Well!... Plenty of time before _that_ happens.... * * * * * To-night, though, there’d be that other explanation: his to me about that—really, under the circumstances it might be called that _outrage_! Even yet I hadn’t made up my mind how I was to accept what he should say. The only thing left standing of all the many answers I’d considered and rejected was, “Well, it must never happen again, that’s all!” Even that doesn’t sound right, somehow. Perhaps something really clinching will occur to me later. * * * * *