Alice was half laughing, half weeping.

"Maybe not the twelve-children part," she said. "Poor Cassie, you would be worn out."

They both laughed as Cassandra got to her feet.

"Besides, Alice," she said, "there is no reason that all your life and happiness should be lived through me. /Vicariously/ is a horrid word.

Perhaps it is time you began to live on your own account. And love.

Perhaps /you/ will meet a gentleman and he will realize what a perfect gem he has found and will fall in love with you and you with him.

Perhaps /you/ will live happily ever after."

"But not with a dozen children, I hope," Alice said with a look of mock horror, and they both laughed again.

Ah, there was so little opportunity for laughter these days. It seemed to Cassandra that she could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had felt sheer amusement during the past ten years.

"I had better go and dust off my black bonnet," she said.

***

Stephen Huxtable, Earl of Merton, was riding in Hyde Park with Constantine Huxtable, his second cousin. It was the fashionable hour of the afternoon, and the main carriageway was packed with vehicles of all descriptions, most of them open so that the occupants could more readily take the air and look about at all the activity around them and converse with the occupants of other carriages and with pedestrians. There were crowds of the latter too on the footpath. And there were many riders on horseback. Stephen and Constantine were two of them as they wove their way skillfully among the carriages.

It was a lovely early summer day with just enough fluffy white clouds to offer the occasional welcome shade and prevent the sun from being too scorching.