"You mustn't darling, really you mustn't. I'll be completely mortified if you do. I can't have you weeping at my wedding. I know Marjorie will, and that'll be bad enough, heaven knows." "Well, you must have your breakfast now, anyhow," said Mrs. Deane getting up decisively to pour out the coffee, "but I warn you that whatever you say, I shall shed a tear or two. What I shall do when Drusilla marries I can't think. Thank goodness I've still got her." "By that time you'll have shoals of grandchildren to console you," Jessica suggested comfortably. "My dear Jessica----" began Mrs. Deane, but broke off suddenly and continued, "Oh well I suppose you young things know your own business best, but I could never even have thought a thing like that on my wedding morning." "No darling, I don't suppose you could, but then your generation was so stuffy, wasn't it?" said Jessica gently. "Some of us were very happy anyhow," retorted Mrs. Deane, kissing Jessica again, "I couldn't want anything better for you than to be as happy with Hugh as I've been with your father. But really, my dear, it's very naughty of you to keep me here gossiping. I have a hundred and one things to see to, in fact I must go this minute and see if the bouquets have arrived yet. Eat a proper breakfast and don't hurry." As Mrs. Deane opened the door Drusilla appeared on the threshold. "Oh Mother," she said with an accent of the deepest reproach, "you're no good at all. You ought to have been having a serious talk with Jessica. I've been eavesdropping for hours, hoping you would begin to instruct her in the facts of life, and all I heard was her telling you you were stuffy!" When Mrs. Deane blushed she looked like both her daughters, and now she twisted her fingers in a gesture that Jessica, too, was betrayed into in moments of embarrassment. "Really you are terrible," she said distractedly, "both of you. I don't know which of you is the most indelicate. I shall go and take refuge with the caterers and the furniture men. They have much nicer minds than either of my daughters. Good-bye, darlings." She hurried out and Drusilla took her place on Jessica's bed. "I'm holding a series of audiences this morning," said Jessica, "Obviously it's the proper thing for all the family to tip-toe in and peep at me ghoulishly to make sure I haven't faded away in the night. Isn't mother a duck?" "Yes, she's rather sweet," answered Drusilla, "and frightfully competent too. You know there is a vast amount of arranging to be done for a show like this, and you and I haven't done a hand's-turn to help, have we?" Jessica's white forehead wrinkled into a frown. "It's rather worrying," she began. "Of course I shan't have to bother about anything on my honeymoon. Hugh is marvellous about trains and arrangements and he can do it all, but I suppose in a month when we come home I'll have to settle down and be a proper person, and everyone will criticise me."