"Oh, well, if you don't mind," said Mrs. Bransby, looking a little surprised. And so it was settled. But at the last moment, in arranging her table and disposing the cards with the guest's name before each cover, Mrs. Bransby found that it would be necessary, for the sake of symmetrically alternating a lady and gentleman, to divide one couple, and place them on opposite sides of the table. She decided that Dr. Hatch and Miss Hadlow would endure this sort of divorce with equanimity; and thus it came to pass that when Theodore took his seat at table he found himself in the enviable and unexpected position of sitting between the two young ladies of the party--Constance and May. Mr. Bransby led out Mrs. Hadlow, the hostess bringing up the rear with Canon Hadlow. Major Mitton had the honour of escorting Miss Piper, while Miss Patty fell to Mr. Bragg. There was, as is usual on such occasions, very little conversation while the soup and fish were being eaten. Miss Piper, indeed, who was constitutionally loquacious, talked all the while to Major Mitton, though in a comparatively low tone of voice; but the rest of the company devoted themselves mainly to their plates; or at least said only a fragmentary sentence now and then. But by degrees the desultory talk swelled into a continuous murmur, across which bursts of laughter were wafted at intervals. May had the satisfaction she had hoped for, of being allowed to be quiet; for her neighbour on the one hand was the canon, who contented himself with smiling on her silently, whilst Theodore was greatly occupied by _his_ neighbour, Miss Hadlow. Being seated between him and Major Mitton, she monopolized the younger gentleman's attention with the undoubting conviction that he enjoyed being monopolized. Mr. Bragg, a heavy, melancholy-looking man, found Miss Patty Piper a congenial companion on a topic which interested him a good deal--cookery. Not that he was a _gastronome_. He had a grand French cook; but he confided to Miss Patty that he never tasted anything nowadays which he relished so much as he had relished a certain beef-steak pudding that his deceased "missis" used to make for him thirty years ago, and better. Miss Patty had, as it happened, some peculiar and special views as to the composition of a beef-steak pudding; and Mr. Bragg--borne backwards by the tide of memory to those distant days when his missis and he lodged in one room, and before he had learned the secret of transmuting tin-tacks into luxury and French cooks--enjoyed his reminiscences in a slow, sad, ruminating way. Presently, when the dessert was on the table, there came a little lull in the general conversation, and the husky contralto voice of Miss Piper was heard saying, "My dear Major, I tell you it was the same woman. You say you heard her at Malta fifteen years ago. Very well. That's no reason; for she might have been only sixteen or seventeen then. These Italians are so precocious."