And now-the moment had come; the bell pealed at my door, and my heart began to beat more quickly as I went to answer it.

I silently applauded my own impulsive decision to adopt propriety in my clothing, since had I shown myself in dressing gown, Marion would well have believed that “the leopard cannot change his spots” and suspected a trap forthwith. No, in waistcoat and trousers of the finest Ascot cut, even with spats to gild the lily as it were, she could not see me otherwise than as an elegantly attired if worldly gentleman to whom she was coming for a cup of tea and an earnest discussion on her sister’s possible betrothal and marriage. Doubtless, I told myself even as I went to the door, she would come full of sententious and pious maxims, ready to sermonize me as to the wrongdoing of my past and her prayerful hopes that my nature would be sanctified in future as regards her only living kin, dear Sister Alice. And to be sure, such a lecture would allow her full occasion for delivering those famous rejoinders full of underlying sarcasm at my expense, while she would bask in the comfortable knowledge that the social code prescribed my accepting them in all meek humility, leaving her safe from reprisal. And then, oh my lady, what a fall from grace there would be!

I opened the door to her. My pulses leaped at the sight that greeted my eager eyes. In an adorable little felt hat with a feather that set a jaunty note of imperious sophistication, cape and rustling silken dress whose hems descended to her ankles, Marion stood before me, her lovely haughty face a bland mask of disdain and smug security; oh, yes, from the very lineaments of her features there could be no doubt