Ashley: "I shall be glad to have you tell me—or any one."
Miss Garnett: "I don't understand. Has Isobel—"
Ashley: "Miss Garnett, did you know I was engaged?"
Miss Garnett: "Why, yes; I was just going to congrat—"
Ashley: "Well, don't, unless you can tell me whom I am engaged to."
Miss Garnett: "Why, aren't you engaged to Emily Fray?"
Ashley: "Not the least in the world."
Miss Garnett, in despair: "Then what have I done? Oh, what a fatal, fatal scrape!" With a ray of returning hope: "But she told me herself that she was engaged! And you were together so much, last summer!" Desperately: "Then if she isn't engaged to you, whom is she engaged to?"
Ashley: "On general principles, I shouldn't know, but in this particular instance I happen to know that she is engaged to Owen Brooks. They were a great deal more together last summer."
Miss Garnett, with conviction: "So they were!" With returning doubt: "But why didn't she say so?"