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I put on my very prettiest pink organdie dress and did my hair the new way, which is very becoming to me. When you are going to have an important interview with a man it is always well to look your very best. I put on my big hat with the wreath of pink roses that Aunt Tommy had brought me from New York and took my spandy ruffled parasol.

“With your shield or upon it, Jill,” said Jacky when I started. (This is another classical allusion.)

I went straight up the hill and down the road to the manse where Dick lived with his old housekeeper, Mrs. Dodge. She came to the door when I knocked and I said, very politely, “Can I see the Reverend Stephen Richmond, if you please?”

Mrs. Dodge went upstairs and came right back saying would I please go up to the study. Up I went, my heart in my mouth, I can tell you, and there was Dick among his books, looking so pale and sorrowful and interesting, for all the world like Lord Algernon Francis in the splendid serial in the paper cook took. There was a Madonna on his desk that looked just like Aunt Tommy.

“Good evening, Miss Elizabeth,” said Dick, just as if I were grown up, you know. “Won’t you sit down? Try that green velvet chair. I am sure it was created for a pink dress and unfortunately neither Mrs. Dodge nor I possess one. How are all your people?”

“We are all pretty well; thank you,” I said, “except Aunt Tommy. She–” I was going to say, “She cries every night after she goes to bed,” but I remembered just in time that if I were in Aunt Tommy’s place I wouldn’t want a man to know I cried about him even if I did. So I said instead “–she has got a cold.”

“Ah, indeed, I am sorry to hear it,” said Dick, politely but coldly, as if it were part of his duty as a minister to be sorry for anybody who had a cold, but as if, apart from that, it was not a concern of his if Aunt Tommy had galloping consumption.

“And Jack and I are terribly harrowed up in our minds,” I went on. “That is what I’ve come up to see you about.”

“Well, tell me all about it,” said Dick.

“I’m afraid to,” I said. “I know you’ll be cross even if you are a minister. It’s about what Jack told you about that man in New York and Aunt Tommy.”

Dick turned as red as fire.

“I’d rather not discuss your Aunt Bertha’s affairs,” he said stiffly.

“You must hear this,” I cried, feeling thankful that Jacky hadn’t come after all, for he’d never have got any further ahead after that snub. “It’s all a mistake. There is a man in New York and he just worships Aunt Tommy and she just adores him. But he’s seventy years old and he’s her Uncle Matthew who brought her up ever since her father died and you’ve heard her talking about him a hundred times. That’s all, cross my heart solemn and true.”

You never saw anything like Dick’s face when I stopped. It looked just like a sunrise. But he said slowly, “Why did Jacky tell me such a–tell me it in such a way?”

“We wanted to make you jealous,” I said. “I put Jacky up to it.”

“I didn’t think it was in either of you to do such a thing,” said Dick reproachfully.

“Oh, Dick,” I cried–fancy my calling him Dick right to his face! Jacky will never believe I really did it. He says I would never have dared. But it wasn’t daring at all, it was just forgetting. “Oh, Dick, we didn’t mean any harm. We thought you weren’t getting on fast enough and we wanted to stir you up like they do in books. We thought if we made you jealous it would work all right. We didn’t mean any harm. Oh, please forgive us!”