d in gorgeous crimson. The elder sister pushed from behind. The
little procession wore an air of triumphant satisfaction, still tempered
by the proprieties.

'This is my sister,' said the mistress of the house.

'I am very glad to see you, Mr. Courthope.' The tones of Eliz were sharp
and thin. She was evidently acting a part, as with the air of a very
grand lady she held out her hand.

He was somewhat dazzled. He felt it not inappropriate to ask if he had
entered fairyland. Eliz would have answered him with fantastic
affirmative, but the elder sister, like a sensible child who knew better
how to arrange the game, interposed.

'I'll explain it to you. Eliz and I are giving a party to-night. There
hasn't been any company in the house since father died four years ago,
and we know he wouldn't like us to be dull, so when our stepmother went
out, and sent word that she couldn't come back to-night, we decided to
have a grand party. There are only to be play-people, you know; all the
people in Miss Austen's books are coming, and the nice ones out of _Sir
Charles Grandison_.'

She paused to see if he understood.

'Are the _Mysteries of Udolpho_ invited?' he asked.

'No, the others we just chose here and there, because we liked
them--Evelina, although she was rather silly and we told her that we
couldn't have Lord Ormond, and Miss Matty and Brother Peter out of
_Cranford_, and Moses Wakefield, because we liked him best of the
family, and the Portuguese nun who wrote the letters. We thought we
would have liked to invite the young man in _Maud_ to meet her, but we
decided we should have to draw the line somewhere and leave out the
poetry-people.'

The girl, leaning her forearms slightly on the back of her sister's
chair, gave the explanation in soft, business-like tones, and there was
only the faintest lurking of a smile about the corners of her lips to
indicate that she kept in view both reality and fantasy.

'I think that I shall have to ask for an introduction to the Portuguese
nun,' said Courthope; 'the others, I am happy to say, I have met
before.'

A smile of approval leapt straight out of her dark eyes into his, as if
she would have said: 'Good boy! you have read quite the right sort of
books!'

Eliz was not endowed with the same well-balanced sense of proportion;
for the time the imaginary was the real.

'The only question that remains to be decided,' she cried, 'is what
_you_ would prefer to be. We will let