most amusing as a change, and it is not as if we were likely to be thrown in her way when we return to England!”

“She is a _rara avis_,” cried Captain Pullen enthusiastically, “she certainly must know some good people if men like Naggett and Menzies have been at her house, and yet the way she advertises her boots and shoes is too delicious! O! dear yes! I cannot consent to cut the Baroness Gobelli! I am half in love with her already!”

Elinor Leyton made a gesture of disgust.

“And you--who are considered to be one of the most select and fastidious men in Town,” she said, “I wonder at you!”

Then he made a bad matter worse, by saying,

“By the way, Margaret, who was that beautiful girl who sat on the opposite side of the table?”

“The _what_,” exclaimed Elinor Leyton, ungrammatically, as she turned round upon the Digue and confronted him.

“He means Miss Brandt!” interposed Margaret, hastily, “many people think that she is handsome!”

“No one could think otherwise,” responded Ralph. “Is she Spanish?”

“O! no; her parents were English. She comes from Jamaica!”

“Ah! a drop of Creole blood in her then, I daresay! You never see such eyes in an English face!”

“What’s the matter with her eyes?” asked Elinor sharply.

“They’re very large and dark, you know, Elinor!” said Mrs. Pullen, observing the cloud which was settling down upon the girl’s face, “but it is not everybody who admires dark eyes, or you and I would come off badly!”

“Well, with all due deference to you, my fair sister-in-law,” replied Ralph, with the stupidity of a selfish man who never knows when he is wounding his hearers, “most people give the preference to dark eyes in women. Anyway Miss Brandt (if that is her name) is a beauty and no mistake!”

“I can’t say that I admire your taste,” said Elinor, “and I sincerely hope that Miss Brandt will not force her company upon us whilst you are here. Margaret and I have suffered more than enough already in that respect! She is only half educated and knows nothing of the world, and is altogether a most uninteresting companion. I dislike her exceedingly!”

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