l in three counties, sir," said
her father: but he might have been prejudiced in favour of his own, and
he had been known to speak of himself as "the finest man in Ireland,
and you know what that means, sir." Further, his dog was "the greatest
dog that ever ratted in the universe." Whatever he owned was not only
good, it was great and unique, and whatever he did not own had, in his
opinion, very little to recommend it.

But his daughter was beautiful. When the male eye encountered her it
was in no haste to look away. When the female eye lit on her it was,
and the owner of the female eye, having sniffed as was proper, went
home and tried to do up her hair or her complexion in the like
manner--as was also proper. A great many people believe (and who will
quarrel with their verities) that beauty is largely a matter of craft
and adjustment.--Such women are beautiful with a little
difficulty--they pursue loveliness, run it to earth in a shop, obtain
it with a certain amount of minted metal, and reincarnate themselves
from a box.--They deserve all the success which they undoubtedly
obtain. There are other women who are beautiful by accident--such as,
the cunning disposition of a dimple, the abilities of a certain kind of
smile, the possession of a charming voice--for, indeed, an ugly woman
with a beautiful voice is a beautiful woman. But some women are
beautiful through the spendthrift generosity of nature, and of this
last was she. Whatever of colour, line, or motion goes to the
construction of beauty that she was heiress to, and she knew it only
too well.

A person who has something of his own making may properly be proud of
his possession, even if it is nothing more than a stamp album, but a
person who has been gifted by Providence or Fairy Godmothers should not
be conceited. A self-made man may be proud of his money, but his son
may not. Pride in what has been given freely to you is an empty pride,
and she was prouder of her beauty than a poet is of his odes--it was
her undoing in the end.

She was so accustomed to the homage of men that one who failed to make
instant and humble obeisance to her proved himself to be either a very
vulgar person or else a miracle. Such folk were few, for the average
man bends as readily to beauty as a flower sways to the wind, or the
sea to the touch of the moon.

Before she was twenty years of age she had loomed in the eye of every
male in her vicinity as the special female whom natur