mbassy ball by Father or Di before me,
on that day or the next, so I, too, kept my own counsel. I was afraid if
I gabbled as I longed to do, Father might take it into his head that the
child had better stop at home. All I heard was a little talk about the
time to start, and whether a taxi should be ordered or a coupe. I
thought there would be rather a squash in a coupe with Father, Diana,
and me folded together in a sort of living sandwich; but I was so small,
I could perhaps manage not to slide off the little flap seat with its
back to the horses.

It was a coupe they finally decided on, and it was ordered for a quarter
to ten. We had a short and early dinner, and as I did Diana's hair, it
seemed to me that I had never seen her look prettier. I wondered whether
Captain March would admire her very much, and I hoped for his own
sake--I almost believed it was for his own sake!--that he wouldn't fall
in love. As I thought this, I looked with a new kind of criticism at Di,
to judge whether he were likely to be one of her victims.

Heaps of men had fallen in love with Di since I began to be old enough
to notice such things. They had never been the right sort of men, from
her point of view, for none of the lot had had a penny to bless himself
with, or even a title worth the taking. But all of them had been worth
flirting with; and after they had been dropped with more or less of a
dull thud, I'm afraid some of them had suffered. I didn't wish Captain
March to suffer, yet I couldn't help thinking that if I were a man I
might be as silly as the rest and go down before Di.

She was then--and she is now--the most lovable looking thing that can be
imagined. She doesn't appear to be cool and calculating, but
warm-hearted and gentle and soft, far more so than most of the girls one
meets, especially in London, where I think they have the air of being
rather hard: ready to sacrifice everything and everybody for the sake of
what they want to get or do.

If you were going to paint a picture of Ireland, typified by a beautiful
girl, so that you might name your canvas "Dark Rosaleen," you would give
the world to get Di for your model. She is tall, as a Diana ought to be,
and slender though not thin. She gives the effect of fashionable
slimness, yet she is all lovely curves and roundnesses. She has a long
white throat with a charming upturned chin that has a deep cleft in the
middle. It's no exaggeration to say that her skin is as white