petticoated persons differing from this description were manifestly
quite unworthy of any serious consideration.

So his eyes turned to Margaret, who had no eyes for him. She had
forgotten his existence, with an utterness that verged on ostentation;
and if it had been any one else Billy would have surmised she was in a
temper. But that angel in a temper!--nonsense! And, oh, what eyes she
had! and what lashes! and what hair!--and altogether, how adorable she
was, and what a wonder the admiring gods hadn't snatched her up to
Olympus long ago!

Thus far Mr. Woods.

But if Miss Hugonin was somewhat taciturn, her counsellors in divers
schemes for benefiting the universe were in opulent vein. Billy heard
them silently.

"I have spent the entire morning by the lake," Mr. Kennaston informed
the party at large, "in company with a mocking-bird who was practising
a new aria. It was a wonderful place; the trees were lisping verses to
themselves, and the sky overhead was like a robin's egg in colour,
and a faint wind was making tucks and ruches and pleats all over
the water, quite as if the breezes had set up in business as
mantua-makers. I fancy they thought they were working on a great sheet
of blue silk, for it was very like that. And every once in a while a
fish would leap and leave a splurge of bubble and foam behind that you
would have sworn was an inserted lace medallion."

Mr. Kennaston, as you are doubtless aware, is the author of "The
King's Quest" and other volumes of verse. He is a full-bodied young
man, with hair of no particular shade; and if his green eyes are a
little aged, his manner is very youthful. His voice in speaking is
wonderfully pleasing, and he has a habit of cocking his head on one
side, in a bird-like fashion.

"Indeed," Mr. Petheridge Jukesbury observed, "it is very true that God
made the country and man made the town. A little more wine, please."

Mr. Jukesbury is a prominent worker in the cause of philanthropy
and temperance. He is ponderous and bland; and for the rest, he is
president of the Society for the Suppression of Nicotine and the
Nude, vice-president of the Anti-Inebriation League, secretary of the
Incorporated Brotherhood of Benevolence, and the bearer of divers
similar honours.

"I am never really happy in the country," Mrs. Saumarez dissented; "it
reminds me so constantly of our rural drama. I am always afraid the
quartette may come on and sing something."

Kathleen Eppes Sa