dryly. "'Rose,' then, has gone over to the chemist's for the Doctor."
"How jolly of her!" Tony exclaimed. "She's a tremendous comfort."
Mrs. Beever committed herself to no opinion on this point, but it was doubtless on account of the continuity of the question that she presently asked: "Who's this person who's coming to-day to marry her?"
"A very good fellow, I believe—and 'rising': a clerk in some Eastern house."
"And why hasn't he come sooner?"
"Because he has been at Hong Kong, or some such place, trying hard to pick up an income. "He's 'poor but pushing,' she says. They've no means but her own two hundred."
"Two hundred a year? That's quite enough for them!" Mrs. Beever opined.
"Then you had better tell him so!" laughed Tony.
"I hope you'll back me up!" she returned; after which, before he had time to speak, she broke out with irrelevance: "How is it she knows what Julia wanted to say to you?"
