hair was
not dyed. She called her 'such a really good sort'; and the words were
as inappropriate as the words of Peter Ogilvie and Jane Erskine usually
were.

CHAPTER II

Jane Erskine was at the present time at that interesting period when
her friends and relatives, having just discovered the unexpected fact
that she was grown up, subjected her to mildly severe criticism, while
believing that to have reached womanhood at all showed a considerable
amount of talent on her part. They were, they said, under no
misapprehension about Jane; in moments of extreme candour, touched with
responsibility, they had even been known to say that in one or two
respects she was not absolutely perfect. Miss Abingdon, for instance,
who always conscientiously encouraged these moods, and censured the
General for spoiling Jane, would frequently compare her niece with
herself, as she remembered that dim figure of girlhood, and never
failed to find cause for unfavourable comparison between the two. From
the portraits which she drew it was generally believed that Miss
Abingdon must have been born rather a strait-laced spinster of thirty,
and have increased in wisdom until her hair was touched with grey; when
she would seem to have become the mellow, severe, dignified, loving,
and critical lady who at this moment was looking out of her
drawing-room window, and trying to show her impartiality for her orphan
niece by subjecting her to lawful and unbiased criticism.

'The day of the incomprehensible woman is past and gone,' said Miss
Abingdon, and she sighed a little.

Jane Erskine was painting a rabbit-hutch on the lawn. Her attitude
showed the keen workman, but disguised the woman of grace. Miss
Erskine, in fact, was lying full-length on the greensward of her aunt's
lawn absorbed in the engrossing occupation of putting the right dabs of
green paint upon a portion of the inside of the rabbit-hutch which was
awkward to get at.

'They are all alike,' sighed Miss Abingdon. She alluded to the
girlhood of the present day as it presented itself to her regretful and
disapproving eye. 'They wear shoes two sizes too large for them, they
don't require to be taken care of, they buy their own horses, and they
are never ill. They call young men by their Christian names! I don't
think they even have headaches.' Miss Abingdon sighed again over this
lost art of womanhood. 'There is my niece Jane Erskine; she might be a
graceful and elegant