always is solitary! But, since we have that link, by all means confide."
"Well, I was met here by tremendous news." Cora produced it with a purple glow. "He wants me to marry him!"
Mrs. Gracedew looked amiably receptive, but as if she failed as yet to follow. "'He' wants you?"
"Papa, of course. He has settled it!"
Mrs. Gracedew was still vague. "Settled what?"
"Why, the whole question. That I must take him."
Mrs. Gracedew seemed to frown at her own scattered wits. "But, my dear, take whom?"
The girl looked surprised at this lapse of her powers. "Why, Captain Yule, who just went up."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Gracedew with a full stare. "Oh!" she repeated, looking straight away.
"I thought you would know," Cora gently explained.
Her friend's eyes, with a kinder light now, came back to her. "I didn't know." Mrs. Gracedew looked, in truth, as if that had been sufficiently odd, and seemed also to wonder at two or three things more. It all, however, broke quickly into a question. "Has Captain Yule asked you?"
