"Have you told your mother yet?" he asked, one day.
"No—not yet," she said.
"Oughtn't I to meet her?"
"I suppose so—wait a little longer," she pleaded. "Have you told your aunt?"
"You asked me not to. I'd love to take you down to her—she'd like you, I'm certain. It wouldn't matter if she didn't."
They made plans, of course: nothing was settled about the day of their marriage. It was a question whether life was possible for them both on three pounds a week. "I'm sure to get a rise, soon," said Humphrey. "I'll go and ask for one, and tell Ferrol I'm going to be married. We can live splendidly on four pounds a week. Heaps of people live on less."
"I don't know.... It's mother I'm thinking of," she confessed.
"What about mother?" he asked.
"I'm wondering what she'll do without me."
"There are your sisters," he said. "How many are there, let me see"—he ticked them off—"Mabel, Florence and Edith. That's enough for her to go on with."