Chapter 3

Her Marriage, Her Clothes, Her Appetite, and an Inventory of Her
Furniture

A week or two after I dropped the letter I was in a hansom on my
way to certain barracks when loud above the city's roar I heard
that accursed haw-haw-haw, and there they were, the two of them,
just coming out of a shop where you may obtain pianos on the hire
system. I had the merest glimpse of them, but there was an
extraordinary rapture on her face, and his head was thrown
proudly back, and all because they had been ordering a piano on
the hire system.

So they were to be married directly. It was all rather
contemptible, but I passed on tolerantly, for it is only when she
is unhappy that this woman disturbs me, owing to a clever way she
has at such times of looking more fragile than she really is.

When next I saw them, they were gazing greedily into the window
of the sixpenny-halfpenny shop, which is one of the most
deliciously dramatic spots in London. Mary was taking notes
feverishly on a slip of paper while he did the adding up, and in
the end they went away gloomily without buying anything. I was
in high feather. "Match abandoned, ma'am," I said to myself;
"outlook hopeless; another visit to the Governesses' Agency
inevitable; can't marry for want of a kitchen shovel." But I was
imperfectly acquainted with the lady.

A few days afterward I found myself walking behind her. There is
something artful about her skirts by which I always know her,
though I can't say what it is. She was carrying an enormous
parcel that might have been a bird-cage wrapped in brown paper,
and she took it into a bric-a-brac shop and came out without it.
She then ran rather than walked in the direction of the sixpenny-
halfpenny shop. Now mystery of any kind is detestable to me, and
I went into the bric-a-brac shop, ostensibly to look at the
cracked china; and there, still on the counter, with the wrapping
torn off it, was the article Mary had sold in order to furnish on
the proceeds. What do you think it was? It was a wonderful
doll's house, with dolls at tea downstairs and dolls going to bed
upstairs, and a doll showing a doll out at the front door.
Loving lips had long ago licked most of the paint off, but
otherwise the thing was in admirable preservation; obviously the
joy of Mary's childhood, it had now been sold by her that she
might get married.

"Lately purchased by us," said the shopwoman, seeing me look at
the toy, "from a lady who has no further use for it."

I think I have seldom been more indignant with Mary. I bought
the doll's house, and as they knew the lady's address (it was at
this shop that I first learned her name) I instructed them to
send it