a quiet corner, but there were people about everywhere, and the best we could manage was in the mummy-room.  We looked at all the mummies, and I told her all I knew about them, and I kept thinking to myself:  Now, how can I work round to it?  I’ve tried so often, you know, and she’s always escaped me, somehow, and I couldn’t help thinking it was because I hadn’t gone about it in the proper way.  Well, we’d been staring at a mummy for about a quarter of an hour, and neither of us said anything, when all at once a rare idea came into my head.  ‘Sally,’ I said, glancing round to see that there was no one by, ’that mummy was very likely a pretty girl like you, once.’  ‘Do you think so?’ she said, with that look of hers which makes me feel like a galvanic battery.  ‘I do,’ I said, ’and what’s more, there may once have been another mummy, a man-mummy, standing by her just as I am standing by you, and wanting very much to ask her something, and shaking in his shoes for fear he shouldn’t get the right answer.’  ’Did the mummies wear shoes when they were alive?’ she asked, all at once.  ‘Wear shoes!’ I cried out.  ’I can’t tell you, Sally; but one thing I feel very sure of, and that is that they had hearts.  Now, suppose,’ I said, ’we’re those two mummies—­’ ‘I’m sure it’s bad luck!’ interrupted Sally.  ’Oh no, it isn’t,’ said I, seeing something in her face which made me think it was the opposite.  ’Let me go on.  Now, suppose the one mummy said to the other, “Sally—­“’ ‘Were the girl-mummies called Sally?’ she interrupted again.  ‘Sure I can’t say,’ said I, ’but we’ll suppose so.  Well, suppose he said, “Sally if I can hit on some means of making a comfortable home here by the Nile,—­that’s to say, the Thames, you know,—­will you come and keep it in order for me, and live with me for all the rest of our lives?’ Now what do you think the girl-mummy would have answered:’”

Waymark laughed, but O’Gree had become solemn.

“She didn’t answer at once, and there was something very queer in her face.  All at once she said, ’What has Mr. Waymark told you about me?’ ‘Why, just nothing at all,’ I said, rather puzzled.  ’And do you know,’ she asked then, without looking at me, ’what sort of a girl I am?’ Well, all at once there came something into my head that I’d never thought of before, and I was staggered for a moment; I couldn’t say anything.  But I got over it.  ’I don’t want to know anything,’ I said.  ’All I know is, that I like you better than I ever shall any one else, and I want you to promise to be my wife, some day.’  ‘Then you must let me tell you all my story first,’ she said.  ‘I won’t answer till you know everything.’  And so she told me what it seems you know.  Well, if I thought much of her before, I thought a thousand times as much after that!  And do you know what?  I believe it was on my account that she want and took that place in the shop.”

“Precisely,” said Waymark.

“You think so?” cried the other, delighted.