me to call it, only I forget. There is beautiful clay at the place,
her father told her: he found it in making the railway tunnel. She has
visited the British Museum, continental museums, and Greece, and Spain:
and hopes to imitate the old fictile work in time, especially the Greek
of the best period, four hundred years after Christ, or before Christ--I
forget which it was Paula said.... O no, she is not practical in the
sense you mean, at all.'

'A mixed young lady, rather.'

Miss De Stancy appeared unable to settle whether this new definition of
her dear friend should be accepted as kindly, or disallowed as decidedly
sarcastic. 'You would like her if you knew her,' she insisted, in half
tones of pique; after which she walked on a few steps.

'I think very highly of her,' said Somerset.

'And I! And yet at one time I could never have believed that I should
have been her friend. One is prejudiced at first against people who are
reported to have such differences in feeling, associations, and habit,
as she seemed to have from mine. But it has not stood in the least in
the way of our liking each other. I believe the difference makes us the
more united.'

'It says a great deal for the liberality of both,' answered Somerset
warmly. 'Heaven send us more of the same sort of people! They are not
too numerous at present.'

As this remark called for no reply from Miss De Stancy, she took
advantage of an opportunity to leave him alone, first repeating her
permission to him to wander where he would. He walked about for some
time, sketch-book in hand, but was conscious that his interest did not
lie much in the architecture. In passing along the corridor of an
upper floor he observed an open door, through which was visible a room
containing one of the finest Renaissance cabinets he had ever seen. It
was impossible, on close examination, to do justice to it in a hasty
sketch; it would be necessary to measure every line if he would bring
away anything of utility to him as a designer. Deciding to reserve this
gem for another opportunity he cast his eyes round the room and blushed
a little. Without knowing it he had intruded into the absent Miss
Paula's own particular set of chambers, including a boudoir and sleeping
apartment. On the tables of the sitting-room were most of the popular
papers and periodicals that he knew, not only English, but from Paris,
Italy, and America. Satirical prints, though they did not unduly
preponder