"Yes, but who for? And stepfather to step-what? Stepdaughter or stepson?"
"Yourself, little goose! You would be the stepdaughter."
Sally was then so taken aback that she could make nothing of it,
but stood in a cloud of mystification. The major had to help her. "How would you like your mother to marry Mr. Fenwick?" He was one of those useful people who never finesse, who let you know point-blank where you are, and to whom you feel so grateful for being unfeeling. While others there be who keep you dancing about in suspense, while they break things gently, and all the while are scoring up a little account against you for considerateness.
Sally's bewilderment, however, recognised one thing distinctly—that the Major's inquiry was not to get, but to give, information. He didn't the least want to know what she thought; he was only working to give her a useful tip. So she would take her time about answering. She took it, looking as grave as a little downy owl-tot. Meanwhile, to show there was no bad feeling, she went and sat candidly on the fossil's knee, and attended to his old whiskers and moustache.
"Major dear!" said she presently.
"What, my child?"
"Wouldn't they make an awfully handsome couple?" The Major replied, "Handsome is as handsome does," and seemed to suggest that questions of this sort belonged to a pre-fossilised condition of existence.
"Now, Major dear, why not admit it when you know it's true? You know quite well they would make a lovely couple. Just fancy them going up the aisle at St. Satisfax! It would be like mediæval Kings and Queens." For Sally was still in that happy phase of girlhood in which a marriage is a wedding, et præterea aliquid, but not much. "But," she continued, "I couldn't give up any of mamma—no, not so much as that—if she was to marry twenty Mr. Fenwicks." As the quantity indicated was the smallest little finger-end that could be checked off with a thumb-nail, the twenty husbands would have come in for a very poor allowance of matrimony. The Major didn't seem to think the method of estimation supplied a safe ground for discussion, and allowed it to lapse.
"I may be quite wrong, you know, my dear," said he. "I dare say I'm only an old fool. So we won't say anything to mamma, will us, little woman?"