"
"But I saw it in a paper, I assure you," said Lady Probyn, by no
means convinced.
"Ah, that may very well be; they were hard up for a paragraph, no
doubt, and inserted it. But, as for Derrick, why, how should he
marry? He has been madly in love with Miss Merrifield ever since
our cruise in the Aurora."
Lady Probyn made an inarticulate exclamation.
"Poor fellow!" she said, after a minute's thought; "that explains
much to me."
She did not explain her rather ambiguous remark, and before long our
tete-a-tete was interrupted.
Now that my friend was a full-fledged barrister, he and I shared
chambers, and one morning about a month after this garden party,
Derrick came in with a face of such radiant happiness that I
couldn't imagine what good luck had befallen him.
"What do you think?" he exclaimed; "here's an invitation for a
cruise in the Aurora at the end of August--to be nearly the same
party that we had years ago," and he threw down the letter for me to
read.
Of course there was special mention of "my niece, Miss Merrifield,
who has just returned from India, and is ordered plenty of sea-air.
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