I won't drive into town, because Brenda's coming out with Lord Leighton in her new motor to fetch me; at least, she will, if other papas have been as delightful as you have been." He put his hand up and stroked her cheek with a gesture that was older than she was, and said with a smile which meant more than she could comprehend: "Ah! so it _was_ a conspiracy, after all! Well, dear, I hope that, for all your sakes, it will turn out a successful one." About the same time Brenda was saying to her parents: "Poppa and Mammy, I've got some news to tell you, and I've slept on it, so as to make quite sure about the telling." "And what might that be, Brenda ?" asked her mother, looking up a trifle anxiously.

"Nothing very serious, I hope." "Anything connected with the Marmions ?" asked her father, in a voice that sounded as though it had come from somewhere far away.

He had the _Times_ propped up against the sugar basin on his left hand, and he had just read the announcement of Franklin Marmion's lecture for the following evening, and this was quite a serious matter for him.
"It's connected with them in this way," said Brenda, leaning her elbows on the table.

"You and Uncle have wanted a coronet in the family, and you know that I've refused three, because the men who wore them weren't fit to respect, to say nothing about loving.

Well, I've just discovered that I do love a man who has one coronet now, and will have another some day, unless something unexpected happens to him; but mind, it's the man I love and want to marry, and I'd want to do it just the same if he was still the same man he is, and hadn't either a coronet or a dollar to his name." "That's like you, Brenda, and it sounds good," said her father, tearing his attention away from the alluring title of Franklin Marmion's lecture.