u refer to the
Roman Catholic priesthood?"

"I mean an old ecclesiastic who should have led a very pure, abstinent
life. Now I take it that has been the case with you, sir; one sees it in
your face," Felix proceeded. "You have been very--a very moderate. Don't
you think one always sees that in a man's face?"

"You see more in a man's face than I should think of looking for," said
Mr. Wentworth coldly.

The Baroness rattled her fan, and gave her brilliant laugh. "It is a
risk to look so close!" she exclaimed. "My uncle has some peccadilloes
on his conscience." Mr. Wentworth looked at her, painfully at a loss;
and in so far as the signs of a pure and abstinent life were visible in
his face they were then probably peculiarly manifest. "You are a beau
vieillard, dear uncle," said Madame M; auunster, smiling with her
foreign eyes.

"I think you are paying me a compliment," said the old man.

"Surely, I am not the first woman that ever did so!" cried the Baroness.

"I think you are," said Mr. Wentworth gravely. And turning to Felix he
added, in the same tone, "Please don't take my likeness. My children
have my daguerreotype. That is quite satisfactory."

"I won't promise," said Felix, "not to work your head into something!"

Mr. Wentworth looked at him and then at all the others; then he got up
and slowly walked away.

"Felix," said Gertrude, in the silence that followed, "I wish you would
paint my portrait."

Charlotte wondered whether Gertrude was right in wishing this; and she
looked at Mr. Brand as the most legitimate way of ascertaining. Whatever
Gertrude did or said, Charlotte always looked at Mr. Brand. It was a
standing pretext for looking at Mr. Brand--always, as Charlotte thought,
in the interest of Gertrude's welfare. It is true that she felt a
tremulous interest in Gertrude being right; for Charlotte, in her small,
still way, was an heroic sister.

"We should be glad to have your portrait, Miss Gertrude," said Mr.
Brand.

"I should be delighted to paint so charming a model," Felix declared.

"Do you think you are so lovely, my dear?" asked Lizzie Acton, with her
little inoffensive pertness, biting off a knot in her knitting.

"It is not because I think I am beautiful," said Gertrude, looking all
round. "I don't think I am beautiful, at all." She spoke with a sort
of conscious deliberateness; and it seemed very strange to Charlotte to
hear her discussing this question so publicly. "It is because I