little. "I want a starting-point--I want to know where I am," she said.
"Just two or three of your grand old thoughts."

Basil stepped nearer to his cousin; he remarked to her that Miss Verena
was very pretty. She turned an instant, glanced at him, and then said,
"Do you think so?" An instant later she added, "How you must hate this
place!"

"Oh, not now, we are going to have some fun," Ransom replied
good-humouredly, if a trifle coarsely; and the declaration had a point,
for Miss Birdseye at this moment reappeared, followed by the mesmeric
healer and his wife.

"Ah, well, I see you are drawing her out," said Miss Birdseye to Mrs.
Farrinder; and at the idea that this process had been necessary Basil
Ransom broke into a smothered hilarity, a spasm which indicated that,
for him, the fun had already begun, and procured him another grave
glance from Miss Chancellor. Miss Verena seemed to him as far "out" as a
young woman could be. "Here's her father, Doctor Tarrant--he has a
wonderful gift--and her mother--she was a daughter of Abraham
Greenstreet." Miss Birdseye presented her companion; she was sure Mrs.
Farrinder would be interested; she wouldn't want to lose an opportunity,
even if for herself the conditions were not favourable. And then Miss
Birdseye addressed herself to the company more at large, widening the
circle so as to take in the most scattered guests, and evidently feeling
that after all it was a relief that one happened to have an obscurely
inspired maiden on the premises when greater celebrities had betrayed
the whimsicality of genius. It was a part of this whimsicality that Mrs.
Farrinder--the reader may find it difficult to keep pace with her
variations--appeared now to have decided to utter a few of her thoughts,
so that her hostess could elicit a general response to the remark that
it would be delightful to have both the old school and the new.

"Well, perhaps you'll be disappointed in Verena," said Mrs. Tarrant,
with an air of dolorous resignation to any event, and seating herself,
with her gathered mantle, on the edge of a chair, as if she, at least,
were ready, whoever else might keep on talking.

"It isn't _me_, mother," Verena rejoined, with soft gravity, rather
detached now from Mrs. Farrinder, and sitting with her eyes fixed
thoughtfully on the ground. With deference to Mrs. Tarrant, a little
more talk was necessary, for the young lady had as yet been
insufficiently explained. Miss Birdseye fe