know; I have never seen him. He is just come home from
Canada; the youngest of the family--and I hate boys," replied Agatha,
running the sentences one upon the other in her quick fashion.

"The youngest of the family--how many are there in all?" inquired the
elder lady, her friendly anxiety being probably once more on matrimonial
thoughts intent.

"I am sure, Mrs. Hill, I cannot tell. I have never seen any of them but
Major Harper, and I never saw him till my poor father died; all which
circumstances you know quite well, and Emma too; so there is no need to
talk a thing twice over."

From her occasional mode of speech, some people might say, and did say,
that Agatha Bowen "had a temper of her own." It is very true, she was
not one of those mild, amiable heroines who never can give a sharp word
to any one. And now and then, probably from the morbid restlessness
of unsatisfied youth--a youth, too, that fate had deprived of those
home-ties, duties, and sacrifices, which are at once so arduous and so
wholesome--she had a habit of carrying, not only the real black kitten,
but the imaginary and allegorical "little black dog," on her shoulder.

It was grinning there invisibly now; shaking her curls with short
quick motion, swelling her rich full lips--those sort of lips which are
glorious in smiles, but which in repose are apt to settle into a gravity
not unlike crossness.

She was looking thus--not her best, it must be allowed--when a servant,
opening the drawing-room door, announced "Visitors for Miss Bowen."

The first who entered, very much in advance of the other, appeared with
that easy, agreeable air which at once marks the gentleman, and one long
accustomed to the world in all its phases, especially to the feminine
phase; for he bowed over Agatha's hand, and smiled in Agatha's now
brightening face, with a sort of tender manliness, that implied his
being used to pleasing women, and having an agreeable though not an
ungenerous consciousness of the fact.

"Are you better--really better? Are you quite sure you have no cold
left? Nothing to make your friends anxious about you?" (Agatha shook her
head smilingly.) "That's right; I am so glad."

And no doubt Major Harper was; for a true kind-heartedness, softened
even to tender-heartedness, was visible in his handsome face. Which face
had been for twenty years the admiration of nearly every woman in every
drawing-room he entered: a considerable trial for any man. Now a