“Thank you,” I said, putting the papers on the desk. “By the way, may I—I hope you will——What I mean is, Ukridge told me all about it. I hope you will be very happy.” Her face fit up. She really was the most delightful girl to look at I had ever met. I could not blame Ukridge for falling in love with her. “Thank you very much,” she said. She sat in the huge arm-chair, looking very small. “Stanley has been telling me what friends you and he are. He is devoted to you.” “Great chap!” I said, heartily. I would have said anything which I thought would please her. She exercised a spell, this girl. “We were at school together.” “I know. He is always talking about it.” She looked at me with round eyes exactly like a Persian kitten’s. “I suppose you will be his best man?” She bubbled with happy laughter. “At one time I was awfully afraid there wouldn’t be any need for a best man. Do you think it was very wrong of us to steal Aunt Elizabeth’s parrot?” “Wrong?” I said, stoutly. “Not a bit of it. What an idea!” “She was terribly worried,” argued the girl. “Best thing in the world,” I assured her. “Too much peace of mind leads to premature old age.” “All the same, I have never felt so wicked and ashamed of myself. And I know Stanley felt just like that, too.” “I bet he did!” I agreed, effusively. Such was the magic of this Dresden china child that even her preposterous suggestion that Ukridge possessed a conscience could not shake me. “He’s so wonderful and chivalrous and considerate.” “The very words I should have used myself!” “Why, to show you what a beautiful nature he has, he’s gone out now with my aunt to help her do her shopping.” “You don’t say so!” “Just to try to make it up to her, you see, for the anxiety we caused her.” “It’s noble! That’s what it is. Absolutely noble!” “And if there’s one thing in the world he loathes it is carrying parcels.” “The man,” I exclaimed, with fanatical enthusiasm, “is a perfect Sir Galahad!” “Isn’t he? Why, only the other day——” She was interrupted. Outside, the front door slammed. There came a pounding of large feet in the passage. The door of the study flew open, and Sir Galahad himself charged in, his arms full of parcels. “Corky!” he began. Then, perceiving his future wife, who had risen from the chair in alarm, he gazed at her with a wild pity in his eyes, as one who has bad news to spring. “Millie, old girl,” he said, feverishly, “we’re in the soup!” The girl clutched the table. “Oh, Stanley, darling!” “There is just one hope. It occurred to me as I was——” “You don’t mean that Aunt Elizabeth has changed her mind?” “She hasn’t yet. But,” said Ukridge, grimly, “she’s pretty soon going to, unless we move with the utmost despatch.” “But what has happened?” Ukridge shed the parcels. The action seemed to make him calmer. “We had just come out of Harrod’s,” he said, “and I was about to leg it home with these parcels, when she sprang it on me! Right out of a blue sky!”