"My dear, I went and lunched on them the other day--excellent, excellent! Don't know how they do it for the money. I saw the whole process--went over the factory. Everything as clean as a new pin; you could eat your dinner off the floor." "I--I--don't know," said Regina. "It seems a little.--However, having put my hand to the plough, I am not one to look back. Once my daughter has married sausages, I will honor sausages!" "You will certainly be able to honor a good deal that sausages will give her," said Alfred Whittaker. "And now, Queenie, there's a subject on which I have been trying to get a word with you for the last week or more. What are we going to give, Queenie, for our wedding present?" But that was not a question to be answered off-hand. It was a matter requiring much consideration, consultation--divination, I might say. The major points of the coming ceremony were all arranged; the bride's dress, the costumes of the maids, the favors for the men, and the wording of the invitations. It was the last and greatest, and perhaps the least easy to decide--what should be the present of the father and mother of the bride. CHAPTER XIV DIAMOND EARRINGS It is an accepted rule that a gift is enhanced if it comes in the nature of a surprise. The great question was not settled exclusively by Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker. "You must," said Alfred to his wife in the sanctity of their sleeping apartment, "find out what Maudie would like to have for her wedding present from us. I wouldn't buy her 'a pig in a poke,' she'll have too many of such articles, and it is important that she should have something from us that she really wants." "The question is," said Regina to her lord, "what your ideas are on the subject." "No, my dear Queenie, my ideas will not make the least difference," he returned, as he carefully examined one side of his respectable face to see if he had scraped it sufficiently clean. "I can afford, my dear Queenie, to give you a free hand in this matter. I only stipulate that it shall be something that Maudie wants--really wants. A grand piano?" "Not a grand piano," said Regina. "Mr. Marksby's rich aunt is giving them that." "Bless me! I didn't know they had a rich aunt. I thought Mr. Marksby had made all the money in the family. Well, there are plenty of things to make a choice of, silver for the table, furniture for the drawing-room, a brougham--anything else that she likes and that you like." "Well, I will have a little chat with Julia," said Regina, with that rapt air of contemplation which was all her own. "Julia is a girl with ideas, Julia is far removed from the commonplace, Julia is a genius." "Well," said Alfred Whittaker, "I don't know that it takes much genius to choose a wedding present." "In a sense, dear Alfie, in a sense. But there is one question, dearest, that you must decide. How much is our wedding present to cost?"