ooked at for a longer time.
"Well, it wasn't HER way."

"My mother's? No indeed. Oh my mother's way--!" Vanderbank waited, then
added gravely: "She was taken in time."

Mr. Longdon turned half-round as to reply to this, but instead of
replying proceeded afresh to an examination of the expressive oval in
the red plush frame. He took up little Aggie, who appeared to interest
him, and abruptly observed: "Nanda isn't so pretty."

"No, not nearly. There's a great question whether Nanda's pretty at
all."

Mr. Longdon continued to inspect her more favoured friend; which led him
after a moment to bring out: "She ought to be, you know. Her grandmother
was."

"Oh and her mother," Vanderbank threw in. "Don't you think Mrs.
Brookenham lovely?"

Mr. Longdon kept him waiting a little. "Not so lovely as Lady Julia.
Lady Julia had--!" He faltered; then, as if there were too much to say,
disposed of the question. "Lady Julia had everything."

Vanderbank gathered hence an impression that determined him more and
more to diplomacy. "But isn't that just what Mrs. Brookenham has?"

This time the old man was prompt. "Yes, she's very brilliant, but it's
a totally different thing." He laid little Aggie down and moved away as
without a purpose; but his friend presently perceived his purpose to
be another glance at the other young lady. As if all accidentally and
absently he bent again over the portrait of Nanda. "Lady Julia was
exquisite and this child's exactly like her."

Vanderbank, more and more conscious of something working in him,
was more and more interested. "If Nanda's so like her, WAS she so
exquisite?"

"Oh yes; every one was agreed about that." Mr. Longdon kept his eyes on
the face, trying a little, Vanderbank even thought, to conceal his own.
"She was one of the greatest beauties of her day."

"Then IS Nanda so like her?" Vanderbank persisted, amused at his
friend's transparency.

"Extraordinarily. Her mother told me all about her."

"Told you she's as beautiful as her grandmother?"

Mr. Longdon turned it over. "Well, that she has just Lady Julia's
expression. She absolutely HAS it--I see it here." He was delightfully
positive. "She's much more like the dead than like the living."

Vanderbank saw in this too many deep things not to follow them up.
One of these was, to begin with, that his guest had not more than
half-succumbed to Mrs. Brookenham's attraction, if indeed he had by
a fine originality not resisted i