Christina

L. G. MOBERLY
Author of Hope, My Wife, That Preposterous Will, etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED LONDON, MELBOURNE & TORONTO 1912
Dedicated to WINIFRED V. WALKER, WITH MUCH LOVE.
CONTENTS

Don't be a silly ass, Layton. Do I look the sort of man to play such a fool's trick?
My dear fellow, there's no silly ass about it. You, a lonely bachelor, and not badly off—desirous of settling down into quiet, domestic life, would like to find a young lady of refined and cultured tastes who would meet you with—a view to matrimony. I'll take my oath you are as ready as this gentleman is, to swear you will make an excellent husband, kind, domesticated, and——
Further speech was checked by a well-directed cushion, which descended plump upon the speaker's bronzed and grinning countenance, momentarily obliterating grin and countenance alike, whilst a shout of laughter went up from the other occupants of the smoking-room.
Jack, my boy, Mernside wasn't far wrong when he defined you as a silly ass, drawled a man who leant against the mantelpiece, smoking a cigarette, and looking with amused eyes at the squirming figure under the large cushion; what unutterable drivel are you reading? Is the Sunday Recorder responsible for that silly rot?
The Sunday Recorder is responsible for what you are pleased to call silly rot, answered the young man, who had now flung aside the cushion, and sat upright, looking at his two elders with laughing eyes, whilst he clutched a newspaper in one hand, and tried to smooth his rumpled hair with the other. The Sunday Recorder has a matrimonial column—and—knowing poor old Rupert to be a lonely bachelor, not badly off, and desirous of settling down into quiet domestic life, etc., etc.—see the printed page —he waved the journal over his head— I merely wished to recommend my respected cousin to insert an advertisement on these lines, in next Sunday's paper.