Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/293

 the supreme advantage over my lord that he knew his own mind pretty clearly.

In the opinion of Princess Bedalia, Milly was an extremely lucky girl. Her young man was a simple, good fellow, honest as the day, he was incapable of any kind of meanness, he was very rich, and, what was hardly less important, he was very much in love. Milly, however, who had her mother's knack of seeing men and events objectively, did not yield a final graceful assent until she extorted a promise from Mr. Charles that he would suffer the rape of his mustache, at the best a mere scrub of an affair, and that he would solemnly eschew yellow plush hats which hats made him look like a piano-tuner.

Still, on this heroic morning, in the middle of July, Mrs. Wren seemed less pleased with the world than she had reason to be. She did some sort of justice to her egg, but she wouldn't look at the marmalade. If the truth must be told, a rather histrionic mind was still haunted by the shade of the noble Marquis. As Milly, in one of her moments of engaging candor, had told Mary already, as far as her mother was concerned Wrexham had simply queered the pitch for everybody.

Certainly that lady felt it to be her duty to rebuke Mary's enthusiasm. There was nothing to make a song about. Milly was simply throwing herself away. If everyone had had their rights, she would have been Lady W., with a coronet on her notepaper. As it was, there was really nothing so very wonderful in being the wife of an overdressed tobacconist.

Mary cried "Shame," and for her pains was sternly admonished. One who has made such hay of her own