"That she will. How the little girl would have clapped her hands at this!"
"What little girl?" asked Wesden.
"Why, Mattie, to be sure. Mattie, who used to play the mother almost to those two, her seniors, and be always as interested as a mother in making a match between them."
"Ah!—Mattie!—yes!"
Mr. Wesden looked about for his pipe and his pipe-lights on the mantel-piece.
Mr. Hinchford drew his favourite meerschaum from his coat-pocket. The two old men faced each other, and began to smoke vigorously.
"I wonder where that girl has got to?" suggested Hinchford.
"It's impossible to say. In good hands, I hope."
"I'd lay a heavy wager that she knows whose birthday it is to-day," commented Mr. Hinchford; "she was a girl who never forgot anything."
"Ah—perhaps so!"