There was Mrs Clyde getting her only daughter engaged to be married also, she heard; while no suitor came forward for _her_ two poor orphan girls! Such was the staple of her conversation--enlivening, at any rate. "Oh, ma!" exclaimed Bessie Dasher at this juncture; "you should not say so to Mr Lorton! He'll think you wish him to propose at once!" and both she and her sister burst out laughing at the idea. "So I would," said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. "So I would, too, if there weren't a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. `How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away.' But," I continued, turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption of easy indifference which I found it hard to counterfeit under the searching glances of the two wild Irish girls, her daughters, "is it really true what you said just now about Mrs Clyde's daughter, Lady Dasher?" "Yes, Mr Lorton," she replied, "to the best of my belief it is; for, I have heard, on the most unimpeachable authority, that she is engaged to Mr Mawley. He is always going there, you know." "But that is no proof, ma," said Bessie Dasher, who, as I have hinted before, was suspected of a slight tenderness towards the curate. "Mr Mawley is always coming here, too!" "True, my dear," said her mother; "still there are comings and comings. You may depend he only goes there so often _for a purpose_! Indeed, I asked Mrs Clyde whether there was not something in it only yesterday, and she smiled and said nothing; and, if _that_ isn't proof," she concluded, triumphantly, "I don't know _what_ is!" Bessie remained silent, but her sister said impulsively, "I don't believe it, ma--not what you say, but about Minnie Clyde's engagement. Mr Mawley's going there proves nothing, as Bessie said; and, as for Mrs Clyde, I believe she would smile in that graceful way of hers--I hate fine people!--and say nothing if you told her that her house was on fire! The curate is always gadding about, and Minnie is a pretty girl; so, of course, he likes to go there and see her; but, I know, that she does not care twopence for him." "Ah, you may say so, my dear; but _I_ know better. She would jump to have him. All girls like handsome young clergymen, as I know to my cost. Ah, Mr Lorton," went on Lady Dasher, with a sad expressive shake of her head, "marriage is a sad lottery, a sad lottery! I once thought of marrying into the church, too, when my poor dear papa was alive. Perhaps it would have been a happier lot for me if I had done so! He was such a dear, nice clergyman, and looked so well in his canonicals-- such a truly evangelical minister! I could listen to his sermons for hours without feeling the slightest fatigue!"