gray cheviot travelling dress, as did her sisters,
and a gray Alpine hat. She was leaning back, talking to the English
captain who accompanied them, and laughing. Carlton thought he had
never seen a woman who appealed so strongly to every taste of which he
was possessed. She seemed so sure of herself, so alert, and yet so
gracious, so easily entertained, and yet, when she turned her eyes
towards the strange, dismal landscape, so seriously intent upon its sad
beauty. The English captain dropped his head, and with the pretence of
pulling at his mustache, covered his mouth as he spoke to her. When he
had finished he gazed consciously at the roof of the car, and she kept
her eyes fixed steadily at the object towards which they had turned
when he had ceased speaking, and then, after a decent pause, turned her
eyes, as Carlton knew she would, towards him.

"He was telling her who I am," he thought, "and about the picture in
the catalogue."

In a few moments she turned to her sister and spoke to her, pointing
out at something in the scenery, and the same pantomime was repeated,
and again with the third sister.

"Did you see those girls talking about you, Mr. Carlton?" Miss Morris
asked, after they had left the car.

Carlton said it looked as though they were.

"Of course they were," said Miss Morris.

"That Englishman told the Princess Aline something about you, and then
she told her sister, and she told the eldest one. It would be nice if
they inherit their father's interest in painting, wouldn't it?"

"I would rather have it degenerate into an interest in painters
myself," said Carlton.

Miss Morris discovered, after she had returned to her own car, that she
had left the novel where she had been sitting, and Carlton sent Nolan
back for it. It had slipped to the floor, and the fly-leaf upon which
Carlton had sketched the Princess Aline was lying face down beside it.
Nolan picked up the leaf, and saw the picture, and read the inscription
below: "This is she. Do you wonder I travelled four thousand miles to
see her?"

He handed the book to Miss Morris, and was backing out of the
compartment, when she stopped him.

"There was a loose page in this, Nolan," she said. "It's gone; did you
see it?"

"A loose page, miss?" said Nolan, with some concern. "Oh, yes, miss; I
was going to tell you; there was a scrap of paper blew away when I was
passing between the carriages. Was it something you wanted, miss?"