rilliant little
specimens of the tint.

He listened with that expression of clear amusement which is not always
an indication of high esteem, but which even pretty chatterers, who are
not the reverse of estimable, often prefer to masculine inattention; and
while he listened Bernard, according to his wont, made his reflections.
He said to himself that there were two kinds of pretty girls--the
acutely conscious and the finely unconscious. Mrs. Vivian's protege was
a member of the former category; she belonged to the genus coquette. We
all have our conception of the indispensable, and the indispensable, to
this young lady, was a spectator; almost any male biped would serve
the purpose. To her spectator she addressed, for the moment, the whole
volume of her being--addressed it in her glances, her attitudes, her
exclamations, in a hundred little experiments of tone and gesture and
position. And these rustling artifices were so innocent and obvious
that the directness of her desire to be well with her observer became
in itself a grace; it led Bernard afterward to say to himself that the
natural vocation and metier of little girls for whom existence was but a
shimmering surface, was to prattle and ruffle their plumage; their
view of life and its duties was as simple and superficial as that of
an Oriental bayadere. It surely could not be with regard to this
transparent little flirt that Gordon Wright desired advice; you could
literally see the daylight--or rather the Baden gaslight--on the other
side of her. She sat there for a minute, turning her little empty head
to and fro, and catching Bernard's eye every time she moved; she had for
the instant the air of having exhausted all topics. Just then a young
lady, with a gentleman at her side, drew near to the little group, and
Longueville, perceiving her, instantly got up from his chair.

"There 's a beauty of the unconscious class!" he said to himself. He
knew her face very well; he had spent half an hour in copying it.

"Here comes Miss Vivian!" said Gordon Wright, also getting up, as if to
make room for the daughter near the mother.

She stopped in front of them, smiling slightly, and then she rested her
eyes upon Longueville. Their gaze at first was full and direct, but
it expressed nothing more than civil curiosity. This was immediately
followed, however, by the light of recognition--recognition embarrassed,
and signalling itself by a blush.

Miss Vivian's companion was