Miss Nimrod was astonished to hear of the number of rejections, and to learn that she had whipped up the Writers, and the Junior Widows, and her private friends to such little purpose. But in the end she agreed with Lillie that, as no doubt somewhere or other in the wide universe ideal Old Maids were blooming and breathing, it would be folly to clog themselves up in advance with inferior specimens. The millionaire, who was pottering about in blue spectacles, strolled into the club while Wee Winnie was uttering magnificent rhapsodies about the pages the Club would occupy in the histories of England, but this time Lillie was determined the dignity of the by-laws should be maintained, and had her father shown out by Turple the magnificent. Miss Nimrod went, too, and so Lord Silverdale had the pleasure of finding Lillie alone. "You ought to present me with a pair of white gloves," he said, gleefully. "Why?" asked Lillie. "I haven't had a single candidate to try for days." "No," said Lillie with a suspicion of weariness in her voice. "They all broke down in the elementary stage." Even as she spoke Turple the magnificent ushered in Miss Margaret Linbridge. Lord Silverdale, doubly vexed at having been a little too previous in the counting of his chickens, took up his hat to go, but Lillie murmured: "Please amuse yourself in the library for a quarter of an hour, as I may want you to do the trying at once." "How do you expect me to amuse myself in the library?" he grumbled. "You don't keep one of my books." Miss Margaret Linbridge's story was simple, almost commonplace. "I had spent Christmas with a married sister in Plymouth," she said, "and was returning to London by the express on the first of January. My prospects for the New Year were bright--or seemed so to my then unsophisticated eyes. I was engaged to be married to Richard Westbourne--a good and good-looking young man, not devoid of pecuniary attractions. My brother, with whom I lived and on whom I was dependent, was a struggling young firework-manufacturer, and would, I knew, be glad to see me married, even if it cost him a portion of his stock to express his joy. The little seaside holiday had made me look my prettiest, and when my brother-in-law saw me into a first-class carriage and left me with a fraternally-legal kiss, I rather pitied him for having to go back to my sister. There was only one other person in the carriage beside myself--a stern old gentleman, who sat crumpled up in the opposite corner and read a paper steadily. "The train flew along the white frosty landscape at express rates, but the old gentleman never looked up from his paper. The temperature was chill and I coughed. The old gentleman evinced no symptom of sympathy. I rolled up my veil the better to see the curmudgeon, and smiled to think what a fool he was, but he betrayed no sign of sharing my amusement.