"And where is the Old Maids' Club?" further inquired Miss Woodpecker, looking around curiously. "Here," replied Lillie, indicating the epigrammatic antimacassars with a sweeping gesture. "No, don't go, Lord Silverdale. Miss Woodpecker, this is my friend Lord Silverdale. He knows all about the Club, so you needn't mind speaking before him." "Well, you know, I read the leader in the _Hurrygraph_ about your Club this morning." "Oh, is there a leader?" said Lillie feverishly. "Have you seen it, Lord Silverdale?" "I am not sure. At first I fancied it referred to the Club, but there was such a lot about Ptolemy, Rosa Bonheur's animals and the Suez Canal that I can hardly venture to say what the leader itself was about. And so, Miss Woodpecker, you have thought about joining our institution for elevating female celibacy into a fine art?" "I wish to join at once. Is there any entrance fee?" "There _is_--experience. Have you had a desirable proposal of marriage?" "Eminently desirable." "And still you do not intend to marry?" "Not while I live." "Ah, that is all the guarantee we want," said Lord Silverdale smiling. "Afterwards--in heaven--there is no marrying, nor giving in marriage." "That is what makes it heaven," added Lillie. "But tell us your story." "It was in this way. I was staying at a boarding-house in Brighton with a female cousin, and a handsome young man in the house fell in love with me and we were engaged. Then my mother came down. Immediately afterwards my lover disappeared. He left a note for me containing nothing but the following verses." She handed a double tear-stained sheet of letter-paper to the President, who read aloud as follows: A VISION OF THE FUTURE. "Well is it for man that he knoweth not what the future will bring forth." She had a sweetly spiritual face, Touched with a noble, stately grace, Poetic heritage of race. Her form was graceful, slim and sweet, Her frock was exquisitely neat, With airy tread she paced the street. She seemed some fantasy of dream, A flash of loveliness supreme, A poet's visionary gleam. And yet she was of mortal birth, A lovely child of lovely earth, For kisses made and joy and mirth. Sweet whirling thoughts my bosom throng, To link her life with mine I long, And shrine her in immortal song. I steal another glance--and lo! Dread shudders through my being flow, My veins are filled with liquid snow. Another form beside her walks, Of servants and expenses talks, Her nose is not unlike a hawk's. Her face is plump, her figure fat, She's prose embodied, stout gone flat,-- A comfortable Persian cat. Her life is full of petty fuss, She wobbles like an omnibus, And yet it was not always thus. Alas for perishable grace! How unmistakably I trace The daughter's in the mother's face.