"Would you!" said she, when she had done laughing. "I wouldn't, I promise you. Sophy, don't you know a curate you could marry? You had better, if you can find one." "Not one that has asked me," was Sophy's dry answer. "You don't want me, then, Miss Hatty?" "You would be rather meddlesome, I am afraid," said Hatty, with charming frankness. "You would always be doing conscience." "Don't you intend to keep one?" returned Sophy. "I mean to lay it up in lavender," said Hatty, "and take it out on Sundays." "Hatty, if you haven't a care--" "Please go on, Aunt Kezia. Unfinished sentences are always awful things, because you don't know how they are going to end." "_You_'ll end in the lock-up, if you don't mind," said my Aunt Kezia; "and if I were you, I wouldn't." "I'll try to keep on this side the door," said Hatty, as lightly as ever. "And when is it to be, Aunt Kezia?" "The month after next, I believe." "Isn't Cecilia going home first, to see what her friends say about it?" "She has none belonging to her, except an uncle and his family, and she says they will be delighted to hear it. Hatty, you had better get out of the way of calling her Cecilia. It won't do now, you know." "But you don't mean, Aunt Kezia, that we are to call her Mother!" cried Fanny, in a most beseeching tone. "My dear, that must be as your father wishes. He may allow you to call her Mrs Courtenay. That is what I shall call her." "Isn't it dreadful!" said poor Fanny. "One thing more I have to say," continued my Aunt Kezia, laying down her flannel again and putting on her spectacles. "Your father does not wish you to be present at his marriage." "Aunt Kezia!" came, I think, from us all--indignantly from Sophy, sorrowfully from Fanny, petulantly from Hatty, and from me in sheer astonishment. "I suppose he has his reasons," said my Aunt Kezia; "but that being so, I think Sophy had better go home for a while with the Bracewells, and Hatty, too. You, Cary, may go with Flora instead, if you like. Fanny, of course, is arranged for already, as she will be married by then, and will only have to stop at home." I thought I would very much rather go with Flora. "I have had a letter from your Aunt Dorothea lately," my Aunt Kezia went on, "in which she asks for Cary to pay her a visit next June. But now we are only in March. So, as Cary must be somewhere between times, and I think she would be better out of the way, she will go to Abbotscliff with Flora--unless, my dear," she added, turning to me, "you would rather be at Bracewell Hall? You may, if you like." "I would rather be at Abbotscliff, very much, Aunt Kezia," said I; and I think Aunt Kezia was pleased. "Aunt Kezia, don't send me away!" pleaded Sophy. "Do let me stay and help you to settle at Fir Vale. I should hate to stay at Bracewell, and I should just like bustling about and helping you in that way. Won't you let me?"