"Dear madam," cried Miss Allonby, "I am overjoyed!" then kissed her step-mother vigorously and left the room, casting in passage an arch glance at Mr. Erwyn.  
"O vulgarity!" said Lady Allonby, recovering her somewhat rumpled dignity, "the sweet child is yet unpolished. But, I suppose, we may regard the matter as settled?"
 
"Yes," said Mr. Erwyn, "I think, dear lady, we may with safety regard the matter as settled."
 
"Dorothy is of an excitable nature," she observed, and seated herself upon the divan; "and you, dear Mr. Erwyn, who know women so thoroughly, will overlook the agitation of an artless girl placed in quite unaccustomed circumstances. Nay, I myself was affected by my first declaration,"'
 
"Doubtless," said Mr. Erwyn, and sank beside her. "Lord Stephen was very moving."
 
"I can assure you," said she, smiling, "that he was not the first."
 
"I' gad," said he, "I remember perfectly, in the old days, when you were betrothed to that black-visaged young parson—"
 
"Well, I do not remember anything of the sort," Lady Allonby stated; and she flushed.
 
"You wore a blue gown," he said.
 
"Indeed?" said she.
 
"And—"
 
"La, if I did," said Lady Allonby, "I have quite forgotten it, and it is now your manifest duty to do likewise."
 
"Never in all these years," said Mr. Erwyn, sighing, "have I been able to forget it."
 
"I was but a girl, and 'twas natural that at first I should be mistaken in my fancies," Lady Allonby told him, precisely as she had told Simon Orts: "and at all events, there is nothing less well-bred than a good memory. I would decline to remain in the same room with one were it not that Dorothy has deserted you in this strange fashion. Whither, pray, has she gone?"
 
Mr. Erwyn smiled. "Her tender heart," said Mr. Erwyn, "is affected by the pathetic and moving spectacle of the poor hungry swans, pining for their native land and made a raree-show for visitors in the Pantiles; and she has gone to stay them with biscuits and to comfort them with cakes."
 
"Really!" said Lady Allonby.
 
"And," Mr. Erwyn continued, "to defend her from the possible ferocity of the gold-fish, Captain Audaine had obligingly afforded service as an escort."
 
"Oh," said Lady Allonby; then added, "in the circumstances she might permissibly have broken the engagement."
 
"But there is no engagement," said Mr. Erwyn—"as yet."
 
"Indeed?" said she.
 
"Harkee," said he; "should he make a declaration this afternoon she will refuse him."
 
"Why, but of course!" Lady Allonby marveled.
 
"And the eighth time," said he.
 
"Undoubtedly," said she; "but at whatever are you hinting?"
 
"Yet the ninth time—"
 
"Well, what is it, you grinning monster?"
 
Mr. Erwyn allowed himself a noiseless chuckle. "After the ninth time," Mr.
Erwyn declared, "there will be an engagement."
 
"Mr. Erwyn!" cried Lady Allonby, with widened eyes, "I had understood that
Dorothy looked favorably upon your suit."
 
"Anastasia!" cried he; and then his finger-tips lightly caressed his brow.
"'Tis the first I had heard of it," said Mr. Erwyn.
 
"Surely—" she began.
 
"Nay, but far more surely," said he, "in consideration of the fact that, not a half-hour since, you deigned to promise me your hand in marriage—"
 
"O la now!" cried Lady Allonby; and, recovering herself, smiled courteously. "'Tis the first I had heard of it," said she.
 
They stared at each other in wonderment. Then Lady Allonby burst into laughter.
 
"D'ye mean&mdash............