Sometimes Hope came to dine at the Pyramids, and on these occasions Mrs. Jasher was present in her character of chaperon. As Miss Kendal was helping the widow to marry Professor Braddock, she in her turn did her best to speed Archie's wooing. Certainly the young couple were engaged and there was no understanding to be brought about. Nevertheless, Mrs. Jasher was a useful article of furniture to be in the room when they were together, for Gartley, like all English villages, was filled with scandalmongers, who would have talked, had Hope and Lucy not employed Mrs. Jasher as gooseberry. Sometimes Donna Inez came with the widow, while her father was hunting for the mummy in Pierside, and then Sir Frank Random would be sure to put in an appearance to woo his Dulcinea in admiring silence. Mrs. Jasher declared that the two must have made love by telepathy, for they rarely exchanged a word. But this was all the better, as Archie and Lucy chattered a great deal, and two pair of magpies—Mrs. Jasher declared—would have been too much for her nerves. She made a very good chaperon, as she allowed the young people to act as they pleased, only sanctioning the meetings by her elderly presence.
One evening Mrs. Jasher was due to dinner, and Hope had already arrived. No one else was expected, as Don Pedro had taken his daughter to the theatre at Pierside and Sir Frank had gone to London in connection with his military duties. It was a bitterly cold night, and already a fall of snow had hinted that there was to be a real English Christmas of the genuine kind. Lucy had prepared an excellent dinner for three, and Archie had brought a set of new patience cards for Mrs. Jasher, who was fond of the game. While the widow played, the lovers hoped to make love undisturbed, and looked forward to a happy evening. But there was one drawback, for although the dinner hour was supposed to be eight o'clock, and it was now thirty minutes past, Mrs. Jasher had not arrived. Lucy was dismayed.
“What can be keeping her?” she asked Archie, to which that young gentleman replied that he did not know, and, what was more, he did not