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248 shall be the same? Besides, where is the husband to come from?" I add, laughing.

"But you have a lover," says Alice, "only you will not tell me anything about him."

"There cannot be much to tell yet, I should think," says Milly, with some sisterly rebuke in her tone. "Why, she has only known him since the day before yesterday!"

"Who are you talking about?" asks Alice, looking puzzled. "Nell's lover is not here at all; he is at Silverbridge."

"Is he not?" says Milly, with a queer smile. "I suppose I was mistaken."

"How refreshing it is to see any one blush," says Alice, meditatively. "Now in London, or good society, you never see the ghost of a blush anywhere!"

"But this Silverbridge lover," says Milly, with interest, "who is he—what is he—where did he come from?"

"He is a travelling packman," I say gravely. "I met him in the fields, and he came from Glasgow. We won't talk about him. Tell me, Milly, do you think that while I am here you will have a ball?"

"Tell me about this young man first," says Milly," and I will tell you about the ball afterwards."

This is what I have been dreading: a long, comfortable, married women's conversation over my matrimonial prospects, with a calm and dispassionate balancing of pros and cons, in which my own heart will have no concern. For of all the strenuous advocates of two people marrying who are not particularly fitted for each other, commend me to a couple of young women who have married for love and are perfectly happy; they do not know what uncongenial wedlock means, and cannot be brought to understand its misery. I give a deep groan. With these inquisitors I know of no arts that will avail me save flight, and I do not wish to run