“My dear love, I am only thinking of your good. Now is it reasonable, Edgar? She looks beautiful in mourning, to be sure; but it is more than a year, and she is still in crape. I would have put on my own light silk if I had known you were coming. I hate black from my heart, but it is the most useful to wear, with nice coloured ribbons, when you get old and helpless. I don’t know if you notice any change in my appearance, Edgar? Now how odd you should have found it out! I have plenty of hair still--it is not that; but one gets so untidy with one’s head on a pillow without a cap. Mrs. Pimpernel has quantities of hair; but a married lady is quite different--they can wear things and do things---- Did you observe, Edgar, if ladies wear caps just now abroad?” “They wear a great many different things,” said Edgar, “according to the different countries. I brought Clare a yashmak from Constantinople to cover her head with, and an Albanian cap----” “My dear,” said Miss Somers, sitting upright with horror, “the idea of Clare wearing a cap at nineteen! That shows one should never speak to a man about what is the fashion. Just look at her lovely hair! It will be time enough for that thirty years hence. I cannot think how you could like to live among the Turks. I hope you did not do as they do, Edgar. It may be all very nice to look at, but having a quantity of wives and that sort of thing must be very dreadful. I am sure I never could have put up with it for a day; and then it goes in the very face of the Bible. I hope you are going to forget all that sort of thing now, and settle down quietly here.” “Miss Somers,” said Edgar, with mock solemnity, “if I had left a quantity of wives at Constantinople, is it possible that you could calmly advise me to forget them, and marry another here?” Miss Somers sat up still more straight on her sofa, and showed signs of agitation. “I am sure I would not advise you to what was wrong for all the world,” she said. “Oh, Edgar, my poor boy, what a dreadful position! You might ask the Rector---- But if they were heathens, you know, in a Christian country do you think it would be binding? Clare, dear, suppose you step into the drawing-room a minute, till we talk this dreadful, dreadful business over. Oh, you poor boy! It seems wicked for me, an unmarried lady, even to think of such things; but if I could be of any use to you---- Edgar! that kind of poor creatures,” said Miss Somers, putting her face close to his, and speaking in a whisper, “people buy them in the market, you know, as we read in books. Listen, my dear boy. It is not nice, of course, but----” “What?” said Edgar, bending an eager ear. “You could sell them again, don’t you think? Poor souls, if they are used to it, they wouldn’t care. Good gracious, how can you laugh, with such a burden on your mind? I am thinking what would be the best, Edgar, for you.”