'You told me you had sisters: how many?' 'Two,' he answered wearily, keeping his glance on the cloth. He thought, 'How different they are from you! How shocked they would be to see any girl act and speak as you do! And yet--and yet I--I have asked this woman to be my wife, and in a month I shall know whether she will or not! They never could endure her. They would not walk with her, or sit with her. They would be horrified at every trait in her character. What am I doing? What have I done? Two days ago I told myself I did not want her or her love, and I have proposed to her to-day! What is the matter with me? I used to be a firm man; now I am as fickle as the wind. Perhaps she will refuse me after all. There is one thing certain, whether I marry her or not, I can never introduce her at home.' 'Busy on that sonnet to No. 1136?' He raised his face quickly. She was smiling gently, confidentially at him. This 1136 was a lover's joke, a lover's secret, the first of the kind he had ever had. What a warmth ran through all his nature, at the thought of having a secret with the owner of that soft figure, the owner of that beautiful face, and with the spirit of those dark eyes! They two, she and he, intimate already; bound round by a secret; separated from all the rest of the world by a trivial secret! They two in the innermost bowers of personality! What affluence and prodigality of happiness! What rich tumult! What bewildering joy! 'Ah,' he said, looking at her with eyes dancing with happiness, 'I must think of that sonnet.' 'But were you not thinking of it when I spoke?' 'No.' 'Pray, of what were you thinking behind that gloomy face?' 'I was thinking of my sisters.' 'Are they so very, very dreadful, that when you think of them you must look like a bankrupt gambler coming from the gaming-table?' 'No. They are considered good-looking. Miss Gordon--' 'You must not say that.' 'What?' 'What you were going to say. I saw it on your face, and you have promised not to speak of the matter for a month. I want to talk to you about your sisters. Are they like you?' 'Kate, the elder, is like me.' 'Fair and handsome?' 'She is fair.' 'How old is she?' 'Twenty-four.' 'Ah, my age! And what is your other sister like?' 'Alice is dark.' The girl paused awhile and kept her eyes fixed on the table. She raised her finger for his attention, and said, 'I shall be a month in London. I don't like any of the women at Mrs Barclay's. I am not likely to like any of them. The probability is, no chance arrival will be better than the set now there. Write to-night and ask your sister Kate up for a month.' She raised her eyes to his and looked into his face. He was in dismay. 'She--she would not come!' he cried hastily. 'Why?' 'I know she would not come. She has been more home-staying than I.' 'All the more reason why she should come up now. You don't intend keeping her in a place like Stratford all her life?'