Three women were counting the years now. The years were rolling up--curtain by curtain, like mists from a distant hillside; and behind them the ultimate prospects for which Lady Burdon waited, Mrs. Espart waited, and Aunt Maggie waited began to be revealed. Mrs. Espart had conveyed to Lady Burdon her ambition--formulated long ago--with regard to Dora and Rollo. Lady Burdon reckoned the union as very desirable and gave its consummation a first place among her aspirations for her Rollo. Aunt Maggie saw the hour of her revenge approaching so that its years might now be estimated on the fingers of one hand. So near the desirable ends were approaching that the women began to name dates for their arrival. Youth, with only a few years lived and so enormous an experience gained in those years (as youth believes), cannot endure the thought of planning ahead for a space that is a fair proportion of its whole lifetime. Five years is a monstrous, an insupportable period to youth that has lived but four times five or less. Age, with fewer years to live than have been lived, and with the knowledge of how little a decade has to show, will plan for five years hence with nothing near so much of sighs and groanings as youth will suffer if it must wait five months. The women began to name dates. Those very close friends, Lady Burdon and Mrs. Espart, spoke of dates frequently. Mrs. Espart and Dora had already "come into the family" as Mrs. Espart smilingly expressed it, when, at Lord Burdon's death, and on being acquainted with her dear friend's intention to let the Mount Street house on a short lease and retire to Burdon Old Manor, she had offered herself as lessee. The offer had been most gratefully, most gladly accepted. The great town house was made over to Mrs. Espart for a seven years' term and thus, in Mrs. Espart's phrase, "remained in the family"--ready for Rollo and Dora, as the ladies plotted. And now they were naming dates. "When Rollo is twenty-four," Lady Burdon said to Mrs. Espart, come over from Abbey Royal to lunch at the Manor one day, "look, dear, he is just on twenty now. You know my plans. Next year he is to go to Cambridge. His illness has thrown him back. But next year will be time enough. Three years at Cambridge, then, and that will bring him almost to twenty-three. Then I wish him to go abroad--to travel for a year. That is so good for a young man, I think. Then when he comes back he will be ready to settle down and he will come back just the age for that tradition of ours--celebrating comings-of-age at twenty-four instead of twenty-one. That would be so splendid for the wedding, wouldn't it?" "Splendid!" Mrs. Espart agreed. "Splendid! That old Mr. Amber of yours was trying to tell me the other day how that twenty-four tradition arose. But, really, he mumbles so when he gets excited--!"