But Miss Angela shook her head demurely, ignoring the joke. "No, no--young people ought to be alone; they don't want old things like me interfering. I shall be just as happy thinking of you both as if it was my own wedding." And I really believe she was. For the Etiquette of our preparations, Aunt Angela threw herself pathetically on my mercy. Her sitting-room in Woburn Place, however, was not the only one that was rapidly becoming denuded. My own place with the terra-cotta festoons and hobgoblins was now more than half empty. But I was not relinquishing it yet. I knew I was committing a sentimental extravagance in thus being lord of two domiciles, but (Etiquette having to be considered) I did not wish to go into the new place until I should go there with Evie. So already two cartloads of my belongings had been fetched away, and that very day Miss Angela had been assisting in a task that more than any other seemed the beginning of the end--the removal of my carpet. They did not tell me of this removal. They allowed me to discover it for myself when I went, without light, upstairs into the drawing-room. They had already laid it down; my foot struck its softness in the dark; and I experienced a sudden little thrill of pleasure. It seemed to bring all so suddenly near.... They had crept up after me with a lamp to enjoy my surprise. The room really looked delightful, and all my sense of drawbacks vanished. Four glass candle-sconces with musical little drops--I had picked them up cheap in the street that runs from the Britannia to Regent's Park--were fastened to the walls, two between the window-bays over my breast-high mahogany bookshelves, the other two at the sides of the fireplace in the opposite wall; and across the windows themselves the long chintz curtains were drawn. Evie set the lamp down on the little table that folded almost to nothing against the wall, and tripped round with a taper, lighting up. All my chairs were there, and the couch for which I had ransacked half the catacombs of the Tottenham Court Road, and I can't tell you how pretty it all was, with its ivory woodwork, its dark blue and crimson blotted carpet, and the candle flames turning the polished glass lustres to soft sprinklings of gems. Miss Angela, delicate Pandar, seeing Evie's hand steal towards mine, affected to be very busy at the mantelpiece.... "So," I grumbled presently, "this is your idea of the cheapest way of lighting a room--candles at goodness knows how much a pound?" "Well, there's no electric light," retorted Evie. "And what have you left me at the other place? A bed and a broken chair, I suppose, to make shift with for three weeks and more!" "_And_ a jampot for your shaving-water. Quite enough for a bachelor." "And I'm to get my meals out, I suppose, and pay twice as much for them." But they only begged me to look where they had put Billy Izzard's two sketches--one on either side of the verandah door.