“I used to think I wasn’t a marrying man, Miss Amelia—I may call you that mayn’t I?—Miss Wrigley’s so formal, so cold, between friends, don’t you think?—not a marrying man by a long chalk. Seen so much billing and cooing in my time, and then a chain that can’t very well be broken with a cat at one end of it and a dog at the other. I always draw the line at that particular service in the Prayer Book that so appropriately begins with “dearly beloved” and ends with “amazement! But”—with a sigh that was intended to be sentimental, and a glance that was unmistakeably amorous—“but a man never knows his fate. How true it is that man proposes but God disposes.” “Then man shouldn’t propose,” suggested the lady. “Oh, do be serious, Miss Amelia, or may say I Amelia?” “Certainly you may not say Amelia, Storth, at least not to me. Why should you?” “Because, because oh! hang it Amelia, I mean Miss Amelia, you make it confounded difficult for a fellow. Jove! Isn’t it hot?”—and Mr. Storth mopped his troubled and moist brow with a vast bandana. “I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll have another pint of bitter, with a top on.” Miss Wrigley rose, and, moving with stately ease to the pumps, drew a large tankard of the foaming beverage. “I never knew such a man as you for beer, Mr. Storth.” “Safer than whisky, my dear. I mean Miss Amelia; but I was saying——” “Yes; you were saying.” “Well, lately, ever since I came to know you in fact, I’ve been thinking of settling down. I’m not a sentimental young fool, as you know. This isn’t calf love, in fact, I never had any such tommyrot to bother me as calf-love. It’s the genuine article, warranted 18 carat and entered A1 at Lloyd’s. I’ve met my fate at last. A lady, young, and yet not too young; I do hate your simpering schoolgirl-misses, just out of short frocks, and long what-do-you-call-’ems, with the crochet frills on; tall, a good figure, handsome, of good intelligence and education and manners—by Jove, the manners of a duchess.” “Oh! so you’ve met such a lady at last, have you, Mr. Storth, and deigned to approve of her figure, face, mind, and manners, and all.” “Why, you know I have, Amelia. Ain’t I telling you so?” “Meaning me, I suppose?” queried the lady, with much composure. “Why, of course I mean you. You don’t think I’m such a confounded ass as to sit here half the afternoon talking about another girl. I may be ten or twenty different kinds of fool, but I’m not such a fool as all that comes to. Of course I mean you.” “I’m sure I’m vastly obliged to you,” commented the lady. “You’ve assured me, somewhat obliquely, to be sure, that I’ve a fine figure, a passable face, an intelligent mind, and the manners of a duchess, I think you were so flattering as to observe; and you’ve also assured me, also somewhat obliquely, but ’twill pass, that I’m your fate. You’ve said nothing, by the way, about my heart, Mr. Storth, nor, now I come to think of it, unless very, very obliquely, about your own.”