That same evening Miss Altifiorla, feeling that she had broken the ice, and, oppressed by the weight of the secret which was a secret still in every house in Exeter except the Deanery, wrote to her other friend Mrs. Green, and begged her to come down. She had tidings to tell of the greatest importance. So Mrs. Green put on her bonnet and came down. "My dear," said Miss Altifiorla, "I have something to tell you. I am going to be—"
"Not married!" said Mrs. Green.
"Yes, I am. How very odd that you should guess. But yet when I come to think of it I don't know that it is odd. Because after all there does come a time in,—a lady's life when it is probable that she will marry." Miss Altifiorla hesitated, having in the first instance desired to use the word girl.
"That's as may be," said Mrs. Green. "Your principles used to be on the other side."
"Of course all that changes when the opportunity comes. It wasn't so much that I disliked the idea of marriage, for myself, as that I was proud of the freedom which I enjoyed. However that is all over. I am free no longer."
"And who is it to be?"
"Ah, who is it to be? Can you make a guess?"
"Not in the least. I don't know of anybody who has been spooning you."
"Oh, what a term to use! No one can say that anyone ever—spooned me. It is a horrible word. And I cannot bear to hear it fall from my own lips."
"It is what young men do do," said Mrs. Green.