of Ethel or Edie, whereas Miss Femurs was responsible for herself. But the one of them who would have been most guilty, and who indeed had thought a good deal about Mr. Rowland, and considered the question very closely whether she ought not as a matter of duty to endeavour to interest him in her Ethel, whose name was Dorothy, took up the matter most hotly, and declared that she could not imagine how a lady could make up her mind to such a descent “Not a gentleman: why, he does not even pretend to be a gentleman,” said the lady, as if the pretention would have been something in his favour. “He is not a man even of any education. Oh I know he can read and write and do figures--all those surveyor men can. Yes, I call him a surveyor--I don’t call him an engineer. What was he to begin with? Why he came out in charge of some machinery or something! None of them have any right to call themselves engineers. I call them all surveyors--working men--that sort of thing! and to think that a woman who really is a lady--” “Oh come, Maria, come!” cried her husband, “you are glad enough of the P.W.D. when you have no bigger fish on hand.” “I don’t understand what you mean by bigger fish, Colonel Mitchell,” said the lady indignantly; but if she did not know, all the rest of the audience did. Matchmaking mothers are very common in fiction, but more rare in actual life, and when one exists she is speedily seen through, and her wiles are generally the amusement of her circle, though the woman remains unconscious of this. And indeed poor Mrs. Mitchell was not so bad as she was supposed to be. She was a great entertainer, getting up parties of all kinds, which was the natural impulse of a fussy but not unkindly personality, delighting to be in the midst of everything; and it is certain that picnics and even dinner parties, much less dances, cannot be managed unless you keep up your supply of young men. There were times when her eagerness to keep up that supply and to assure its regularity was put down quite wrongly to the score of her daughters, which is an injustice which every hospitable woman with daughters must submit to. A sort of half audible titter went round the little party when Colonel Mitchell, with that cruel satisfaction so often seen in men, gave over his wife to the criticism of society. A man never stands by the women of his family in such circumstances; he deserts them even when he does not, as in this instance, actually betray. There was one young man, however, one of the staff of dancers and picnic men, who was faithful to her--a poor young fellow who knew that he had no chance of being looked upon as a _parti_, and who made a diversion in pure gratitude, a quality greatly lacking among his kind. “Rowland,” he said, “is one of the best fellows in the world. He does not shine perhaps among ladies, but he’s good fun when he likes, and a capital companion.”