"Oh, Jemima! how I pity the poor chap who marries you!" Nell pulled her hair a trifle looser, using his glass. She turned on him, young, slim, radiantly pretty. "Do you?" she laughed. "I’ll be an old maid, then!" "You do look stunning, old girl! Bet I’ll have the prettiest sister there to-night." "Oh, I do believe you carry a chip of the blarney stone about with you. Come down and let Janie and Benny look at you. Denis, there’s a most delicious scent in this room. What is it?" "Eh? Oh, a bit of lily of the valley I thought you might like. It’s on the wash-hand stand." He whistled a bar of "Widow Macree." "Oh, Denis!" She was holding up a lovely bunch of lilies of the valley to her cheek. He turned with sudden irritation. "Don’t start about it’s being extravagant! It isn’t! If you say a word, I’ll chuck ’em in the dust-bin!" She smiled demurely. The flowers had been behind the water-jug, with a suspicious air of having been hidden there. "They’re lovely," she said, tucking them into her soft folded belt. "I must pin them in. Are you coming, twin?" "If it weren’t for taking you two, I wouldn’t come at all." "Oh, yes, you would." "What’s the good? I haven’t a ghost of a chance—" "If you _knew_ you were bound to make the worst speech there," her head was up, "you would go. We never funk anything, Denis!" "Neither we do, old lady!" He seized her round the waist and ran her downstairs to her room. "Nell," called out the Atom, "aren’t you ready? Janie and Benny have come!" "O dear, then hurry I _must_! Molly, I wish you were coming, too!" "I don’t! I wouldn’t for anything," she whispered eagerly. "I shall go and talk to Aunt Kezia!" "Molly, you’re getting too good altogether for the likes of us! Don’t, in your exaltation, forget to shut Jim up. Benny, what big eyes! Janie, how’s the cold? Duckies, ask Sarah if we didn’t leave two nice cakes at tea. Coming, Denis! Good-bye, Aunt Kezia. Molly, there’s a packet of butter-scotch somewhere—find it for them. Good-bye!" Mark Yovil greeted the Atom as an old friend. "Of course," said Sheila Pat, anxiously, "I don’t know which ladies you’ve spoke to before I came." "Oh, that doesn’t count," he reassured her. Nell looked round the room interestedly. There were not many people there yet. Standing by a lounge talking to a girl with an elaborately dressed head of colourless hair, she saw Ted Lancaster. Another girl, younger, sat between her and an older, stouter edition of them both, obviously the mother. Nell had a quick thought of a hairdresser’s shop, the three heads were so stiffly held, so carefully dressed. Then she wondered, humorously, whether the husband and father didn’t get tired of seeing his wife in three stages of age and size. "Will you come?" Mr. Yovil asked. "I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. Lancaster. She’s Ted Lancaster’s aunt, you know—he and your brother are chums, aren’t they?" "Y-yes."