"Thank goodness, then, he wasn't our papa!" exclaimed the saucy Seraphine. "I'm certain that _I_ wouldn't have been able to listen to his sermons so long!" "Ah, my dear," groaned her mother at her levity, "always frivolous, Seraphine! I'm afraid you will never marry a pious, holy man, as I would wish!" "Not if I know it, ma!" she retorted, so heartily that both her sister Bessie and I--in spite of my anxiety about Min--could not but join in her catching laughter. "No," continued the pert and impetuous young lady, "when I enter the holy estate of matrimony I shall choose a gay soldier laddie. None of your solemn-faced parsons for me! If they were all like our good old vicar, whom I would take to-morrow if he asked me, it would be quite a different thing; but they are not. They are all too steady and starch and stiff now-a-days. They look as if butter would not melt in their mouths!" "Ah, my dear!" said her mother, "you will not think so by-and-by. `Beggars mustn't be choosers.' You have got nothing but your face for your fortune, you know, although it would have been very different if my poor dear papa had been alive!" "What, my face, ma?" said her dutiful daughter, "I'm sure I hope not! Really, I'm very well satisfied with it;" and, getting up and going to the mirror, she set about altering the riband in her hair, humming the while the old ballad-- "`My face is my fortune, kind sir,' she said, `Kind sir,' she said, `sir,' she said; `My face is my fortune, kind sir,' she said." I did not like to press any more inquiries with reference to Mr Mawley's rumoured engagement, thinking they would look too pointed, disclosing my interest in the affair,--however much I was transported with the feelings of mingled jealousy, doubt, and uncertainty, that were preying on my heart; consequently, I now took my leave, all the suspicions and fears, which Shuffler's news had given rise to, more rife than ever:--the renewed hope that Miss Pimpernell's cheery address had inspired me with, completely dispelled. I'm afraid my anxiety was only too apparent; for, Seraphine Dasher whispered to me as I went out, "I don't believe a word of it, there! It is only one of those absurd `true stories' that ma is always getting hold of." But I wouldn't be comforted. It was only likely enough. Mawley was constantly going there, as Lady Dasher had said, and Mrs Clyde encouraged him, there could be no doubt; there must be something in it, or these reports would never have got about. "There is never any smoke without fire." Besides, Min herself did not dislike the curate as I did. I could see that plainly for myself the night of that birthday party at her house. His insinuating address and treacherous advances had probably succeeded at last in entrapping her affections.