Arthur was very anxious that our engagement should be a short one. My mother would have been perfectly satisfied to have escorted me to the altar on the day following our betrothal, if fashion had established any precedent for such a course. But no, she could not remember any respectable folks marrying after an engagement of less than three months.

"People might talk," she said, and I knew that settled it. There was no more awful possibility. An earthquake would have been pleasant, and a conflagration merely an episode in comparison.

"I don't see why Arthur is in such a hurry," she went on. "Really, you have given him no cause for jealousy; your conduct is always irreproachable. In fact if I were a man I should run a mile to avoid you. I have often thought that your manners must be far from attractive to the other sex."