“No, my Porges,—­not yet.”

“Oh!—­but you don’t mean that you—­ever will?”

“Would you be very grieved, and angry, if I did,—­some day soon, my Porges?”

“Well, I—­I didn’t think you were that kind of a man!” answered Small Porges, sighing and shaking his head regretfully.

“I’m afraid I am, nephew.”

“Do you really mean that you want to—­marry my Auntie Anthea?”

“I do.”

“As much as Mr. Cassilis does?”

“A great deal more, I think.”

Small Porges sighed again, and shook his head very gravely indeed: 

“Uncle Porges,” said he, “I’m—­s’prised at you!”

“I rather feared you would be, nephew.”

“It’s all so awful’ silly, you know!—­why do you want to marry her?”

“Because, like a Prince in a fairy tale, I’m—­er—­rather anxious to—­live happy ever after.”

“Oh!” said Small Porges, turning this over in his mind, “I never thought of that.”

“Marriage is a very important institution, you see, my Porges,—­especially in this case, because I can’t possibly live happy ever after, unless I marry—­first—­now can I?”

“No, I s’pose not!” Small Porges admitted, albeit reluctantly, after he had pondered the matter a while with wrinkled brow, “but why pick out—­my Auntie Anthea?”

“Just because she happens to be your Auntie Anthea, of course.”

Small Porges sighed again: 

“Why then, if she’s got to be married some day, so she can live happy ever after,—­well,—­I s’pose you’d better take her, Uncle Porges.”

“Thank you, old chap,—­I mean to.”

“I’d rather you took her than Mr. Cassilis, an’—­why there he is!”

“Who?”

“Mr. Cassilis.  An’ he’s stopped, an’ he’s twisting his mestache.”

Mr. Cassilis, who had been crossing the paddock, had indeed stopped, and was twisting his black moustache, as if he were hesitating between two courses.  Finally, he pushed open the gate, and, approaching Bellew, saluted him with that supercilious air which Miss Priscilla always declared she found so “trying.”

“Ah, Mr. Bellew! what might it be this morning,—­the pitchfork—­the scythe, or the plough?” he enquired.

“Neither, sir,—­this morning it is—­matrimony!”

“Eh!—­I beg your pardon,—­matrimony?”

“With a large M, sir,” nodded Bellew, “marriage, sir,—­wedlock; my nephew and I are discussing it in its aspects philosophical, sociological, and—­”

“That is surely rather a—­peculiar subject to discuss with a child, Mr. Bellew—­”

“Meaning my nephew, sir?”

“I mean—­young George, there.”

“Precisely,—­my nephew, Small Porges.”

“I refer,” said Mr. Cassilis, with slow, and crushing emphasis, “to Miss Devine’s nephew—­”

“And mine, Mr. Cassilis,—­mine by—­er—­mutual adoption, and inclination.”

“And I repeat that your choice of subjects is—­peculiar, to say the least of it.”