On a Saturday when George brought a young lady from High Street, Marylebone, to the shop, and introduced her to his mother with the remark, “I want you two to be friends!” Mrs. Rollinson, greatly upset, perturbed the assistant by giving in reply to the usual question an unusual answer. He went out of the shop in a dazed condition, and on the Monday morning a letter came from him, stating that, on reflection, he decided he was unworthy of the great honour, and he hoped Mrs. Rollinson would not mind if, instead, he sailed for Canada. “It’s all for the best!” said Mrs. Rollinson. After going to chapel twice on the intervening Sunday, she was regarding the possibility of the engagement of her son with greater calm. “George will have to work harder, and I’m good for several years yet. We shall rub along all right. He needn’t get married until he’s thirty. It’s quite fashionable nowadays for gentlemen to wait until they’re getting on in life.” She told him that her first criticism of the girl had been made on the impulse of the moment: she now begged to withdraw the word “minx” and to substitute a more flattering noun. “Very glad to hear you say that, mother. She’s a girl with most wonderful ideas in her head.” “That doesn’t matter,” replied Mrs. Rollinson tolerantly, “so long as she leaves them there.” “What I mean is, extraordinarily ambitious.” “I’m like that, too,” she remarked. “I’ve set my ’eart on having the front of the shop done up this spring. Me and her will get on capitally together. Make your mind quite easy. She can come here every Christmas day and now and again on Sundays—but not too often—and when eventually you get married, why, if all goes well, I’ll retire and I’ll leave you the business. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?” “Mother,” the lad blurted out, “she wanted it to be a secret for a time, but I can’t keep it back from you. We’re married already!” “No, George, my boy. That isn’t true, surely!” “I take all the responsibility,” he went on, “but she said it was no use letting the grass grow under our feet.” “I wish,” said Mrs. Rollinson aside, to the negro figure in the corner, “that grass was growing over her head!” This was the final word of a vehement nature that George’s mother used in regard to her daughter-in-law. When she took some of the furniture, and rode away on the tail of the van to Chalk Farm, she told the middle-aged man with the green baize apron that there was nothing like retiring from business whilst one was still capable of enjoying life: to the lady who owned the house where the furniture was unloaded she mentioned, in taking possession of the two rooms on the ground floor, that her only visitors would be her son and her son’s wife; she hoped they would be in and out of the place frequently. Mrs. Rollinson gave a short, enthusiastic description of the bride and remarked that she already looked upon the girl as her own daughter.