"Most suitable," said my aunt (by which she meant not _quite_ up to the standard she would have exacted for a son of her own), "and with a little money." She patronised this young lady, and even took her with us one day to lunch at the Rectory; but when she said something to Mr.Clerke on the subject, she found him utterly obdurate.

"What does he expect, I wonder ?" cried my aunt, rather unfairly, for the Rector had not given utterance to any matrimonial hopes.

She always said, "She never could feel that Mr.Clerke had behaved well to poor Letitia Ramsay," which used to make downright Polly very indignant.

"He didn't behave badly to her.

It was mamma who always took her everywhere where he was; and how she could stand it, I don't know! He never flirted with her, Regie." The next few years of my life seemed to whirl by.