"All. I was very young when I got engaged. I did not want to be a burden on my brother. But now his firework factory is a brilliant success. He lives in a golden rain. Having only myself to please now, I don't see why I should have to please a husband. The more I think of marriage the less I think of it. I have not kept my eyes open for nothing. I am sure it wouldn't suit me. Husbands are anything but the creatures a young girl's romantic fancy pictures. They have a way of disarranging the most careful toilettes. They ruffle your hair and your temper. They disorder the furniture--and put their feet on the mantelpiece. They scratch the fenders, read books and stretch themselves on the most valuable sofas. If they help in the household they only make more work. The trail of tobacco is over all you prize. All day long the smoke gets into your eyes. Filthy pipes clog your cabinets, your window-curtains reek of stale cigars. You have bartered your liberty for a mess of cigar-ash. There is an odor of bar saloons about the house and boon companions come to welter in whiskey and water. Their talk is of science and art and politics and it makes them guffaw noisily and dig one another in the ribs. There is not a man in the world to whom I would trust my sensitive fragility--they are all coarse, clumsy creatures with a code of morals that they don't profess and a creed of chivalry that they never practise. Falsehood abides permanently in their mouth like artificial teeth and corruption lurks beneath the whited sepulchres of their shirt-fronts. They adore us in secret and deride us when they are together. They feign a contempt for us which we feel for them." These sentiments re-instated Miss Linbridge in the good opinion of the President, conscious heretofore of a jarring chord. She ordered in some refreshments to get an opportunity of whispering to Turple the magnificent that the Honorary Trier might return. "Oh, by the way," said Miss Linbridge, "I hunted out that copy of _Threepenny Bits_ before coming out. I've kept it in a drawer as a curiosity. Here it is!" Lillie took the paper and examined it anxiously. "What's that? _You_ reading _Threepenny Bits_?" said Silverdale coming in. "It is only an old number," said Lillie, "whereby hangs a tale. Miss Linbridge was in a railway accident with it." "Miss Linbridge, Lord Silverdale." The Honorary Trier bowed. "Oh what a pity it was an old number," he said. "Miss Linbridge might have had a claim for damages." "How very ungallant," said Lillie. "Miss Linbridge could have had no claim unless she had been killed." "Besides," added Miss Linbridge laughing at Lillie's bull, "it wasn't an old number then. The accident happened on New Year's Day." "Even then it would have been too old," answered Silverdale, "for it is dated December 2d and the assurance policy is only valid during the week of issue." "What is that?" gasped Miss Linbridge. Her face was passing through a variety of shades.