"No wonder the Bishop looked so grave. We'll have to be married over again..." He broke off, his hand to his collar, wriggling his neck. "Confound that boy! I've got rice all down my back."
"Good old Roddy—I saw him do it! In the car, coming over the Downs. No ... no!" she stamped her foot.... "Be quiet now, I want to read."
She tore open the envelope directed by Aunt Elizabeth. It held another, tightly sealed, and a letter in the pointed hand.
"My dear Jill," so it ran, "I've asked Peter to give you this, and I only hope you won't lose it, with your usual carelessness. I'd better tell you at once, there's money enclosed—in five-pound notes. I understand that even in Italy English notes are respected.
"You needn't trouble to thank me for it. You'd have had it some day anyhow. Also the cheque I've placed with Cook's—in Rome—to your account there.
"Your husband may be all you think. Time alone will prove this—('Oh, Peter—isn't she lovely?'—Jill chuckled with delight.) But I don't like to think of you in a foreign land, without credit. It's lowering for a woman, too, to go to her husband for every penny. Besides, though I've done all I could, your trousseau is an utter farce. You ought to have twelve of everything. And marked, don't forget that! ..."
"Not twelve husbands, let us hope!" McTaggart leaned over her shoulder, as they sat on the narrow berth, side by side, in the dim-lit cabin, reading the letter.
"How shall I be 'marked,' Jill? I hope it doesn't mean hot irons?"
"Like this!" Jill pinched him. "Be quiet now—Listen, Peter. Isn't she an old dear?
"You'll find notes for fifty pounds. Don't go and spend it all at once in a present for your worthless husband! ... And don't spoil him. From the start, hold your own. I know men!"