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 dove-coloured gloves, all appealed irresistibly to Michael’s æsthetic sense.

“What an ideal housekeeper!” he said to himself, as he placed a chair for her. And then an odd thrill of discomfort and shame shot through him. This delicate, dainty old lady—he was to insult her by a form of marriage, and then to live near her, waiting for her death? No; it was impossible—the whole thing was impossible. He found himself in the middle of a sentence.

“And so I fear I am already suited.”

The old lady raised eyebrows as delicate as Sylvia’s own.

“Hardly, I think,” she said, “since your servant admitted me to an interview with you. May I ask you one or two questions before you finally decide against me?”

The voice was low and soft—the voice men loved in the early sixties, before the shrill shriek became the voice of fashionable ladies.

“Certainly,” Michael said. He could hardly say less, and in the tumult of embarrassment that had swept over him, he could not for his life have said more.

The old lady went on. “I am competent to manage a house. I can read aloud fairly well. I am a good nurse in case of sickness;