Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
by chance that Colonel Butler was alive and working in London; and this, I am thankful to say, turned her attention from Will. You were not present, I think, at the great meeting? No, I remember you were away; it was one night when the princess honoured me by dining to meet a few old friends. I gave a little impromptu dance afterwards to some of the officers in Spenworth’s old regiment, not remembering that Hilary Butler was of the number; Phyllida was dining, and they met. . .
After that, it was a foregone conclusion. Every day when I opened my letters or looked at the paper, I expected to read the announcement. You may judge of my misgivings when my sister-in-law Ruth invited me most urgently to come for the week-end to the Hall and to bring Will with me. I have told you that there was some sort of understanding: if Hilary disappeared from human ken, Phyllida would marry Will—something of that kind; she was such a little picture of misery that, if some one had not shewn her a little kindness, I truly honestly believe that she would have wilted away. I was in dread that she would come up and say: “Aunt Ann, Will and I are going to be married”. . . That is why I searched the “Times” so diligently. . . It would be a suitable marriage in some ways: she
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