“You told me to sound him about an engagement, and I did. Oh, but it was a hateful job, and here’s my thanks!” whimpered Mrs. Larcher. “He looked awfully white and stern, and said he only likes you as a cousin, and that he had no intention of anything—and I believe him. It was only in the last two months, since Freddy Soames broke it off, that you’ve gone out of your way to hang on to Douglas. I’m sure I wish there had been something in it—he’s a dear good boy, and I could love him like a son,” and the poor lady sobbed aloud. “You bungled the whole thing, of course!” cried her ungrateful offspring, “I might have known you would put your foot in it; you’ve let him slip through your fingers and just ruined my last chance. Oh, if I’d only talked to him myself, I’d have been on my way to Burma in six months!” Then Cossie broke down, buried her head in a musty cushion, and wept sore. However, after a little time, the broken-hearted damsel recovered; her feelings were elastic, and she allowed herself to be revived with a stiff whisky and soda and a De Reské cigarette. On the following day she had so far recovered as to be able to make a careful toilet and walk out, to call upon her two most intimate pals, in order to inform them—in the very strictest confidence—that she was engaged to her cousin, Douglas Shafto, who had just got a splendid appointment in Burma and would come home in two years! Then she added impressively, “I don’t want this given out—mother would be _furious_; but the first time you come across him I don’t mind if you whisper the news to Freddy Soames.” Cossie sent her cousin a heart-broken letter of farewell, full of underlined words and vague expressions of despair—a portion of which she had copied from a dramatic love scene in a novel. She implored him to write to her, and remained “his devoted till death, Cossie.” Shafto thrust his devoted-till-death Cossie’s letter into the waste-paper basket, with a gesture of excommunication, and barred the doors of his memory upon her round fat face. Preparations for departure proceeded satisfactorily. He received a number of good wishes and not a few gifts. The Tremenheeres sent him an express rifle, the Tebbs a dispatch box, Mrs. Malone gave him a silver cigarette case and a warm rug, Mrs. Galli gave him her blessing, and his mother gave him advice.