But to return to Mr. and Mrs. Allaby. Mrs. Allaby talked about
having married two of her daughters as though it had been the
easiest thing in the world. She talked in this way because she heard
other mothers do so, but in her heart of hearts she did not know how
she had done it, nor indeed, if it had been her doing at all. First
there had been a young man in connection with whom she had tried to
practise certain manoeuvres which she had rehearsed in imagination
over and over again, but which she found impossible to apply in
practice. Then there had been weeks of a wurra-wurra of hopes and
fears and little stratagems which as often as not proved
injudicious, and then somehow or other in the end, there lay the young
man bound and with an arrow through his heart at her daughter's
feet. It seemed to her to be all a fluke which she could have little
or no hope of repeating. She had indeed repeated it once, and might
perhaps with good luck repeat it yet once again -five times over! It
was awful: why, she would rather have three confinements than go
through the wear and tear of marrying a single daughter.
Nevertheless it had got to be done, and poor Mrs.
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