panion concluded the sentence with
mischievous assurance.

"What _I_ had expected? Well! to an extent. I had seen your
photographs, and they are as good as photographs can be, but the
original always comes as a surprise. You look younger, and--there's
some red in your hair, isn't there? It pretends to be dark, but this
morning when you were sitting in the sun, I'll swear it was red! And--
if you'll forgive me--your nose isn't quite so classic as it was
represented! I suspect that photographer of fakes."

"He filled in the dips," said Katrine tracing with a finger tip the
delicate irregularities of her nose.

"I like dips," said Bedford, and they laughed again. Katrine wondered
if he also approved of the ruddy lights which the sun had revealed in
her hair. She had noticed them once or twice as she stood before her
mirror on bright spring mornings, but no one else had commented on the
peculiarity. She herself had admired the dull-red gleam, she hoped he
had done the same, but it was with an air of forced resignation that she
spoke again:

"Very well, then, it is settled that I have red hair, and a bobbley
nose. Please observe that I remain serene and unruffled. That proves
that I have a sweet and modest disposition, and don't care a pin how I
look!"

"Or what you wear, or whether that gauzy thing round your head is
arranged at a becoming angle or not! Can I help in any way? It seems
troublesome to arrange!" said Bedford coolly as for the third time
Katrine's hand went up to pull forward the chiffon hood. She flushed in
the moonlight, and pushed it back with an impetuous jerk.

"Now my hair will get rough. It's not my fault if it blows into ends."

"I like ends," said Bedford once more.

Katrine thanked Providence that _her_ ends curled, and did not blow over
her face in lanky streaks as did the ends of other women. Sometimes
when she had been out in the wind she had felt it a pity to brush them
back. She felt a glow of thankfulness for her own fair looks, which was
inimitably removed from an ordinary conceit. To look pleasant in the
eyes of others--that gave one joy. To-morrow she would wear a blue
dress...

"It's against my upbringing to be untidy," she said demurely. "At home
I have walked between a double fire. The vicar's wife on one side, and
my Sunday School girls on the other. Both would have been scandalised
by `ends,' both expected me to be a model of neatness and decorum." She