"Can he be in love?" said Palestrina; "and if so, as the Jamiesons would say, which is it?"
Palestrina is prettier than ever since her marriage. She still says, "Oh, that will be delightful!" to whatever Thomas and I suggest, and she never seems to have any occupation except to be with us when we want her, and to accede to everything we say, which of course, from a man's point of view, is a very delightful trait in a woman.
"I rather wonder," said Palestrina, "that I have not heard from any of the Jamiesons lately. They are usually such good writers."
"Depend upon it, there is a great bit of news coming," said Thomas. "The Jamiesons always maintain a dramatic silence just before announcing some tremendous piece of intelligence."
Thomas had hardly spoken the words before a telegram was handed to Palestrina, containing the following enigmatical words:---
"Engaged Cuthbertson. Greatly surprised. Deeply thankful.--ELIZA."
This rather mysterious message was followed, later in the day, by a letter four pages in length, and marked on the outside, for some reason best known to Eliza, "Immediate." The letter explained more fully the cause of Eliza's thankfulness, and who it was that was greatly surprised.
"If you had told me," wrote Eliza, "six weeks ago that I should now be engaged to Mr. Cuthbertson, I should hardly have believed it. I really had not a notion that he cared for me until he actually said the words. Is it not too strange to think that perhaps, after all, Maud may be one of the last of us to get married?"
Here followed the usual descriptive catalogue, so characteristic of the Jamiesons' letters. "Mr. Cuthbertson looks like a widower, though he is not one." Strangely enough, I could never think of any other words, when I came to know Mr. Cuthbertson, that described him so well as these, and I can only account for it by saying that the man's deep melancholy and the crape band that he habitually wore round his hat must have given one the feeling that at some time Mr. Cuthbertson had suffered a heavy bereavement. "I have only known him," Eliza's letter went on, "for six weeks, but even that time has shown me his worth. He has a very straight nose and a black beard, and his forehead is distinctly intellectual. I met him first at Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs', where, as you know, I had gone to stay to catalogue their library, and to do a little typewriting for her. You know, of course, that she has become a member of the S.R.S., and their library is a _mine of information_.