"Mothers know everything," she replied. After a minute's pause, Miss Westbury said-- "But if you feel sure that Romer isn't happy, and that he, almost unconsciously perhaps, doesn't really like this young man being always about, mightn't it some day end in some trouble--some explosion?" "It's quite possible." "Then I wonder what Romer would do?" "I know what he would do." "Good heavens, Isabella, you don't mean to say that he would ever bring a----" "It's really strange," said Mrs. Wyburn, "that at your age you should still be so silly. Will you never learn to understand anything at all? Of course not. He would protect her." "Can't something be done? Why don't you speak to Valentia?" "The advice of a relative-in-law in a case of this kind has never yet been known to be of any real use, Millie. I can only hope the whole thing may gradually wear itself out." "May it be so, my dear!" echoed Miss Westbury, unctuously. Mrs. Wyburn got up to go. Miss Westbury helped her to fasten her mantle. "I'm so glad you loosened it, or else you might not feel the benefit of it when you go out, Isabella," she observed, for she was not one to miss an opportunity of making a remark of this kind. "And _do_ look on the bright side. I always say that things of this sort may not be true, and even if they are, everything may be for the best in the end." Mrs. Wyburn liked to excite Millie's interest, and yet somehow loathed her sympathy. "Yes; do you know, I really _should_ have the ceiling painted, if I were you," she said, as if it were a new idea. "Otherwise your house is looking so nice--quite charming. I think it such an excellent plan not to have flowers in the windows, only ever-greens." "So glad you think so. It _is_ rather a good arrangement, because, you see, they always look exactly the same all the year round." "That they certainly do--and nevergreens would be a better name for them," spitefully said Mrs. Wyburn to herself as she drove off. "What a tiresome mood Isabella was in to-day," said Miss Westbury to herself. "I must go and see Jane Totness and tell her what she said.... Ceiling, indeed! She _was_ nasty!" CHAPTER XX A PROPOSAL Miss Luscombe was looking out of the window, looking up to the street, waiting. At last she saw from her basement (the "tank," as her friends called it) a glimpse on the pavement of a pair of feet that she knew. They were the feet of Mr. John Ryland Rathbone. She hastened to prepare herself for his visit.