A recollection rose before Janet's mind of the eldest Miss Ford, with the pretty pink and white empty face, and the demure, if slightly supercilious, manner that befits one conscious of being an Archdeacon's daughter. Janet knew her slightly, and admired her much. The eldest Miss Ford's conversation was always markedly suitable. Her sense of propriety was only equalled by her desire to impart information. Her slightly clerical manner resembled the full-blown Archidiaconal deportment of her parent, as home-made marmalade resembles an orange. Archdeacon Ford was a pompous, much-respected prelate, with private means. Mrs Smith was distantly related to the Fords, and very proud of the connection. She seldom alluded to the eldest Miss Ford without remarking that Venetia was her ideal of what a perfect lady should be. "O Fred, I am so glad!" said Janet, momentarily forgetting everything else in her rejoicing that Fred should have attached himself seriously at last, and to a woman for whom she felt respectful admiration, who had always treated herself with the cold civility that was, in Janet's eyes, the hall-mark of social and mental superiority. "And does she like you?" she said, with pride. She could not see Fred any longer, but her mind's eye saw him--handsome, gay, irresistible. Of course she adored him. "Sometimes I think she does," said Fred, "and sometimes I'm afraid she doesn't." And he expounded at great length, garnished with abundant detail, his various meetings with her; how on one occasion she had hardly looked at him; on another she had spoken to him of Browning--that was the time when he had bought Browning's works; on a third, how there had been another man there--a curate--a beast, but thinking a lot of himself; on a fourth she had said that balls--the Mudbury ball where he had danced with her--were an innocent form of recreation, etc., etc. Janet drank in every word. It reminded her, she said, of "her and George." Indeed, there were many salient points of resemblance between the two courtships. The brother and sister sat long together hand in hand in the soft summer night. Only when she got up at last did the thought of the missing I O U return to Janet. "O Fred!" she said, as they walked towards the house, "supposing after all your I O U turns up? How dreadful! What would happen?" "It won't turn up," said Fred, with a laugh.