up to Ada’s room, tap at the door, and look in like a frolicsome fairy. “Well?” Ada would ask, good-naturedly. “Come down and sing ‘Patience,’” was the whispered entreaty. “Just half-an-hour.” The aesthetic opera was fresh then, and Hilda could not have enough of it; and she laughed, she laughed! Thomas Meres often sat thinking gloomily of this his favourite child. It was well that she was so clever, for she would have to teach, or so he supposed. What else was there for a girl to do? He could not send her into a postoffice, or make her a dispenser of drugs. Poor Hilda! But I was saying that it was she who first ventured to speak to Ada of the latter’s marriage. It was on a walk they took together, over the bridge and along the Park edge of the river, one windy evening at the end of February. It was dusking, and they had the Embankment to themselves, so ran a race from Chelsea Bridge to Battersea Park Pier, to reach it before a steamer coming from the City; having won the race, they stood to-see the boat move on towards the pier at Chelsea. The lights along the opposite bank were just being lit, and made a pretty effect. “Ada,” said the younger girl, as they walked on. “Yes.” “When are you going to be married?” A gust of wind excused silence for a moment; they both had to bend forward against it. “Perhaps never,” was the reply at length. Ada would not have spoken thus at another time and place; just now she was enjoying the sense of full life, quickened in her veins by the run in keen air. “Never? But I thought it was going to be very soon?--Am I rude?” “Not at all; there’s no secret conspiracy. It was to have been soon, but that’s altered.” “Really? And how long will you stay with us?” “As long as you’ll have me. All the year perhaps.” “You don’t mean that! Oh, that’s splendiferous!” The school-girl came out now and then. “Really, now that is jolly! Do you know, I find it just a little dull with Rhoda. She doesn’t seem to care to talk, or to sing, or to do anything. I suppose it’s because she hasn’t been feeling well for a long time. I do wish she’d get better; it makes everything rather miserable, doesn’t it?” “We shall have to take her to the sea-side-at Easter,” Ada said. “Yes, so father was saying the other day. When you _are_ married, where shall you live, Ada?” “One of those houses,” Ada replied, pointing to Cheyne Walk. “That’s a splendid idea! And you’ll have musical parties, won’t you?” “Certainly I will; and you shall sing.” “No, that’s _too_ good! Then we shall get more society; you’ll ask us sometimes to dinner in state, won’t you?” “If you will honour me with your company.” “Now you shouldn’t be ironical; you know very well the honour will all be on the other side. I mean in the case of us girls; father, of course, could go anywhere.” It was an article of faith with Hilda that her father was a conspicuous man of letters, welcome at any table.