"Of course he was," cried Dick, "and proposing to Nellie Rider at the same time. That’s what he came to tell you, Mrs. Kennaird." "While Bob wants to say that he is engaged to Marjory, and doesn’t know what to do about it." "To do about it! Oh, my dear Mr. Fenton, what do you mean?" They were both blushing very much by this time, and it was quite a charity to ask them to sit down. Lily herself took a seat upon the sofa, and, enjoying the situation immensely, encouraged them to go on. "So I must congratulate you both; how good of you to take me into your confidence so soon. Why, it was only this morning, was it not?" "In the woods below the Zaat," interposed Bob quickly; "I could show you the place." "And I was just a quarter of a mile away. Was it not a coincidence, Mrs. Kennaird? We were both done for when we met." She looked from one to the other, asking herself whether this was said in jest, or was indeed the very far from sentimental confession of a not unsentimental youth. And that was a riddle she could not read. It seemed to her that she was listening to boys from a public school, who had all the fine airs and the sporadic idiom of the city, but were at heart as simple as any Corydon from remote pastures. "Really," she said, with just a suspicion of reproach in her tone. "Really, you must be serious, Mr. Fenton." "I was never more serious in my life. We’re both engaged, and we’ve got three hundred and ninety pounds a year between us; that’s why we’ve come to you. You can tell us what we ought to do about it." She laughed—it was so droll. "Then you regard it altogether as a matter of money?" Bob looked rueful. "We don’t, but Mrs. Rider will. These old girls are regular nuts on the cash; she’s sure to want to know what we’ve got." "Then, of course, you will tell her everything?" They looked at each other a little sorrowfully. It was Dick who made answer. "If we do, the engagements will be off. We shall have to cut the girls to-morrow, and it would make it awkward for them. Don’t you think we could have a truce or something—lie low until the night before we go? Don’t you think that, Mrs. Kennaird?" Lily shook her head. "I think you are a pair of babies," she said emphatically. "You don’t seem to know whether you wish to marry or not. That enters into the question, I think; you certainly ought to make up your minds." They nodded their heads as though perfectly in accord with so obvious a truth. Presently, Bob, who hugged his knee during the harangue—not under the delusion that it was Nellie Rider’s waist, but because he did not know what to do with his hands—spoke for the pair of them.