I shall." Then she bade them good afternoon in her usually graceful way; murmured something about a little business which she had with Annie and flitted down the pergola in a cloud of wisteria.
"It does seem wonderful," said Harriet Eustace, "that she should have written that book." Von Rosen glanced at Annie with an inquiring expression.

He wondered whether she wished him to announce their engagement to her aunt.

The amazing suddenness of it all had begun to daunt him.

He was in considerable doubt as to what Miss Harriet Eustace, who was a most conservative lady, who had always done exactly the things which a lady under similar circumstances might be expected to do, who always said the things to be expected, would say to this, which must, of course, savour very much of the unexpected.

Von Rosen was entirely sure that Miss Harriet Eustace would be scarcely able to conceive of a marriage engagement of her niece especially with a clergyman without all the formal preliminaries of courtship, and he knew well that preliminaries had hardly existed, in the usual sense of the term.