I had not had the slightest inkling that the "little affair" was about to "come off" beforehand. I had met Miss Pimpernell out the very morning of the day on which it took place; yet--sly old lady that she was--she hardly gave me a hint of her social intent. She certainly said that she had a little surprise in store for me; but when I pressed her to learn what that "something" was, she preserved a provoking reticence, declining to enlighten me any further. "No, Frank," she said in her cheery way, "it is of no use your trying to coax me with your `dear Miss Pimpernell,' or think to flatter me into divulging my news by false compliments paid to my shabby old bonnet! No, you shall hear it all in good time, so don't be impatient. I won't tell you another word now, my boy, there!" she added finally, trotting off on her parochial rounds and leaving me in suspense until the evening, to exercise my imagination regarding her contemplated "surprise." Then, however, I was let into the secret; and the party was all the more pleasurable from coming quite unexpectedly. I always like doing things on the spur of the moment, without premeditation. If you look out for anything long beforehand, it is apt to pall on the palate when it arrives within your reach. "Unlooked-for blessings" are generally twice as grateful as those which you are led to expect--so, at least, I have found them. On my return home from a walk in the evening, I found a little note of invitation awaiting me, in which Miss Pimpernell requested me to come round to the vicarage precisely at eight, "dressed all in my best," like the impassioned lover of "Sally in our Alley," as she "expected a few friends." She added in a postscript, underlined with one of her characteristic dashes, that _Miss Clyde_ would be there, if that would be any further inducement for me. Oh Miss Pimpernell, you machiavellian old lady! I would not have thought you could have practised such great dissimulation. Would Min's presence be any further inducement to me! Wouldn't it? Oh, dear no, certainly not! In ten minutes' time I was dressed en regle and at the vicarage.