co-pipe!" Here she shivered daintily.

"Alack, madam, see, 'tis broke!"

"Heaven be thanked, sir."

"'Twas an admirable pipe--an old friend," he murmured.

"O fie, sir--only chairmen and watchmen and worse, drink smoke. 'Tis a
low habit, vicious, vain and vulgar."

"Is it so indeed, madam?"

"It is! Aunt Belinda says so and I think so. If you must have vices
why not snuff?"

"But I hate snuff!"

"But 'tis so elegant! There's Sir Jasper Denholm takes it with such an
air I vow 'tis perfectly ravishing! And Sir Benjamin Tripp and
Viscount Merivale in especial--such grace! Such an elegant turn of the
wrist! But to suck a pipe--O Gemini!"

"I'm sorry my pipe offends you!" said he, glancing at her glowing
loveliness.

And here, because of her beauty and nearness he grew silent and finding
he yet held part of his clay pipe, broken in his hasty ascent, he fell
to turning it over in his fingers, staring at it very hard but seeing
it not at all; whereat she fell to studying him, his broad shoulders
and powerful hands, his clean-cut aquiline features, his tender mouth
and strong, square chin. Thus, the Major, glancing up suddenly, eye
met eye and for a long moment they looked on one another, then, as she
turned away he saw her cheek crimson suddenly and she, aware of this,
clenched her white fists and flushed all the deeper.

"'Tis abominable rude to--stare so!" she said, over her shoulder.

"You are the Lady Elizabeth Carlyon, I think?" he enquired.

"And then, sir?"

"Then you are well used to being stared at, methinks."

"At a distance, sir!"

Here the Major edged away a couple of inches.

"You have heard of such a person before, then?" she enquired loftily.

"I go to London--sometimes, madam, when I must and when last there I
chanced to hear her acclaimed and toasted as the 'Admirable Betty'!"
said he, frowning.

"I am sometimes called Betty, sir," she acknowledged.

"Also 'Bewitching Bet'!" Here he scowled fiercely at a bunch of
cherries.

"Do you think Bet so ill a name, sir?" she enquired, stealing a glance
at him.

"'Bewitching Bet'!" he repeated grimly and the hand that grasped his
broken pipe became a fist, observing which she smiled slyly.

"Or is it that the 'bewitching' offends you, sir?" she questioned
innocently.

"Both, mam, both!" said he, scowling yet.

"La, sir," she cried gaily, "in this light and at this precise angle I
do protest you look quite handsome when you fro