“What!” she cried. “You have noticed it?--there is something!--you know what it is?” “Oh, yes,” he said, with an affectation of carelessness “there has been something--a trifle really--nothing of the nature of a difference between Priscilla and myself, but----” “I am glad you can assure me of that--that it is not the result of any difference between you,” said she. “I know that the first few months of married life are usually the most trying to both the man and the woman; but you can assure me that it is not----” “I can give you such an assurance,” he replied. “There has not been so much as a suspicion of difference between us in thought since she entered this house--in fact, since she became my wife.” “What is the matter, then? May I not know, Jack? Don’t tell me if it is anything which concerns Priscilla and you only.” “Dearest mother, there is nothing that can concern us without being a matter of concern to you. Still, this one thing--of course you must know it; but what I am afraid of is that you will attach too much importance to it--that you will not see how it may be easily cleared away.” “You will tell me all about it, Jack, and I promise you not to think of it except in the way you say I should.” “It really is quite a simple thing--five minutes should clear it away for ever; and so far from its standing between Priscilla and myself, it will, I am sure, only draw us closer to each other.” He was not an adept in the art of “breaking it gently”; he had never had need to practise it. He felt that this, his first attempt, was but an indifferent success; he could see that so far from soothing her, his preliminary ambling around the subject was exciting her. And yet he feared to come out with a bare statement of the facts. He was snipping the end off a cigar; somehow he was clumsy over the operation; he could not understand why until he found that he was trying to force into the chamfered cutter the wrong end. And his mother was noticing his confusion and becoming unduly excited. Fortunately at this moment Priscilla entered the room--it was Mrs. Wingfield’s boudoir, a pretty apartment for an invalid, the windows overlooking a garden of roses. Never did Jack so welcome her approach. The moment she passed the door she knew what was before her. “Oh, by the way, Priscilla,” said he, “you may as well tell mother just now all there is to be told about this disagreeable business. I have said that it is unlikely to take up more than a few minutes of the judge’s time. You can best do it alone, I know.” He bolted. His mother smiled, and Priscilla laughed outright; it was so like a man--each knew that that was just what the other was thinking--“so like a man!” The elder lady’s smile was still on her face when Priscilla said: