"Well, really I don't very well see how he could--with her!" "I suppose he and his people have some understanding about it. One's sorry for them, you know." "I think I shall go down to Meriton again this autumn. Any chance of your being there--as a family man?" "I've promised to speak for Andy, so we may put in a few days there. Most of the time I shall have to be preaching to my own flock. I say, will you come and meet Amaranth?" "Of course I will. But really I think I should make it 'Amy'!" "It's worth considering; but I don't know how she'll feel about it," said Billy cautiously. "Oh, said in the way you'll say it, it'll sound sweet," remarked the Nun flippantly. Billy still looked doubtful; perhaps "Amaranth" already sounded sweet. When left alone, Miss Flower indulged herself for awhile in a reverie of a pensive, hardly melancholy, character--not unpleasant, rather philosophical. Billy Foot's new state was the peg from which it hung, its theme the balance of advantage between the single and the married state. It was in some degree a drawback to the former that other people would embrace the latter. Old coteries were thus broken up; old friendships, if not severed, yet rendered less intimate. New comrades had to be found, not always an easy task. There was a danger of loneliness. On the other hand, there were worse things than loneliness; enforced companionship, where companionship had become distasteful, seemed to her distinctly one of them. Being so very much in another person's hands also was a formidable thing; it involved such a liability to be hurt. The balance thus inclined in favour of the single life, in spite of its liability to loneliness. The Nun gave her adhesion to it, with a mental reservation as to the case of an ideal. And even then--the attempt to make it practical? She shook her head with a little sigh, then smiled. "I wonder if Billy had any idea whom I had in my head!" she thought. Sally Dutton came in and found her friend in this ruminative mood. Doris roused herself to communicate the news of Billy Foot's engagement. It was received in Sally's usual caustic manner. "Came to tell you about it, did he? I wonder how much he's told her about you!" "I can't complain if my want of responsiveness hasn't been emphasised, Sally. You couldn't expect him to." "I've been having a talk with Mrs. Harry Belfield," said Sally, taking off her hat. This announcement came rather pat on the Nun's reflections. She was interested. "Well, how is she? What happened?" "In my opinion it's just another of them," Sally pronounced. Being engaged in shopping at certain "stores" which she frequented, she had gone into the tea-room to refresh her jaded energies, and had found herself at the next table to Isobel. Friendly greetings had passed; the two had drunk their tea together--with other company, as presently appeared.