"There was a first footman at Dursley House. Oh, he was a beautiful young man!" she exclaimed in reminiscent rapture; "so dignified." Mr. Wycherly was quite shaken out of his usual smiling fatalism. Had he been able at the moment to analyse his feelings he would have been amazed at the violence of his objection to a first footman as a possible husband for Jane-Anne. But just then he was only conscious of strong resentment at the very idea. It was one thing for her to wait upon him, but to think of his Greek nymph in intimate relations with anybody’s first footman was inconceivable. He grew hot all over, and his chief desire at that moment was to knock somebody down. There she stood by the fireplace, slender and virginal and sweet, a graceful, gracious figure in the straight blue linen dress Mrs. Methuen had chosen for her, regarding him with large surprised brown eyes, and calmly proposing to marry a footman. "Do you not think it would be nice?" she asked. "My dear," said Mr. Wycherly, recovering himself with difficulty and striving ineffectually to speak with his usual calm detachment, "it is an outrageous and impossible contingency, and I beg that you will forthwith dismiss it from your mind at once and for ever." "Sir, you are not eating your dinner," Jane-Anne remarked after a moment’s silence. "How can I eat if you suggest such horrible things?" Mr. Wycherly complained. "But I’d like to marry somebody," Jane-Anne protested, "and I wouldn’t like an ugly person." "Heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Wycherly. "Are footmen the only good-looking men in the world?" "They’re the best-looking men in our walk in life, sir," Jane-Anne rejoined primly, in exact imitation of her aunt. "Come here, Jane-Anne," said Mr. Wycherly. She went obediently and stood beside him. "Have you ever thought," he said gravely, "that your walk in life may be precisely what you choose to make it?" "No, sir," she said frankly, "I’ve always supposed I should be a servant—there doesn’t seem anything else for me to be. You see, aunt knows she could get me into a good family." "I don’t think you’re strong enough for a servant," Mr. Wycherly objected. "Then," she said decidedly, "I think I’d better be a ward." "A ward?" Mr. Wycherly repeated in puzzled tones. "Your ward, like Master Edmund and Master Montagu. I’d like that, it would be lovelly." Mr. Wycherly laughed. "It seems to me," he said, "that I have already adopted you." "Then that’s all right for just now, but afterwards, when I’m grown up, what would you like me to be, sir?" "We’ll think about that later on. Just now I want you to be an entirely happy little girl, to dance in the sunshine and get fat and merry——" "I hope I shall never be fat," she interrupted. "I think it’s hideous." "Well, perhaps not fat—but plump and round and jolly—to learn all your good aunt teaches you and to read for yourself——