andsome girl, actually
offered to her sight--though now in a splendid way--but for the second
time. The first time had been the occasion--only three days before--of
her calling at their hotel with her aunt and then making, for our other
two heroines, a great impression of beauty and eminence. This
impression had remained so with Milly that, at present, and although
her attention was aware at the same time of everything else, her eyes
were mainly engaged with Kate Croy when not engaged with Susie. That
wonderful creature's eyes moreover readily met them--she ranked now as
a wonderful creature; and it seemed a part of the swift prosperity of
the American visitors that, so little in the original reckoning, she
should yet appear conscious, charmingly, frankly conscious, of
possibilities of friendship for them. Milly had easily and, as a guest,
gracefully generalised: English girls had a special, strong beauty, and
it particularly showed in evening dress--above all when, as was
strikingly the case with this one, the dress itself was what it should
be. That observation she had all ready for Lord Mark when they should,
after a little, get round to it. She seemed even now to see that there
might be a good deal they would get round to; the indication being
that, taken up once for all with her other neighbour, their hostess
would leave them much to themselves. Mrs. Lowder's other neighbour was
the Bishop of Murrum--a real bishop, such as Milly had never seen, with
a complicated costume, a voice like an old-fashioned wind instrument,
and a face all the portrait of a prelate; while the gentleman on our
young lady's left, a gentleman thick-necked, large and literal, who
looked straight before him and as if he were not to be diverted by vain
words from that pursuit, clearly counted as an offset to the possession
of Lord Mark. As Milly made out these things--with a shade of
exhilaration at the way she already fell in--she saw how she was
justified of her plea for people and her love of life. It wasn't then,
as the prospect seemed to show, so difficult to get into the current,
or to stand, at any rate, on the bank. It was easy to get near--if they
_were_ near; and yet the elements were different enough from any of her
old elements, and positively rich and strange.

She asked herself if her right-hand neighbour would understand what she
meant by such a description of them, should she throw it off; but
another of the things to which, pre