"But I always thought--don't you
know?--that hair like that was only in novels and poems and that sort of
thing. Is it all your own?" he asked, with sudden suspicion.

"You would think so if you had to carry it for a day. I should have had
it cut off long ago if it had happened to be coarse hair. It is an
inherited evil of which I am too vain to rid myself. The early Spanish
women of my family all had hair that touched the ground when they stood
up. I have an old sketch of a back view of three of them taken side by
side; you see nothing but billows of fine silky hair. But I have put it
out of sight, as it looks rather like an advertisement for a famous hair
restorer."

"I'd give a lot to see yours down. It's wonderful--wonderful!"

"Well, I have promised a private view to some of the women. If Lady
Victoria thinks it quite proper perhaps I'll admit you."

"I'll ask her for a card directly she comes home. Let it be this
afternoon just after tea."

"I wonder if they really are engaged," said Isabel, who had been told
that Englishmen never paid compliments, and was growing embarrassed
under the round-eyed scrutiny. Gwynne and Mrs. Kaye had paused by a
sundial.

"Who? Oh yes, I should think so, although there was some talk that poor
Bratty--but no doubt that was mere rumor, or Mrs. Kaye wouldn't be on
with Jack like that. By Jove, he is engaged. I never saw him look
so--so--well, I hardly know what."

"Do you approve of the match?"

"If my consent is asked I shall give them my blessing. He is the salt of
the earth, although a bit lumpy now and then; and she is such a jolly
little thing, full of genuine affection--just the wife for Jack."

"You believe in her, then?" Isabel wondered, as many another has done,
at the miasma that seems to rise and dim a man's perceptive faculties
when he is called upon to estimate the worth of a fascinating woman.

"Rather! Don't you?"

"She struck me as being one of the few people without a redeeming
virtue. To be sure that has a distinction of its own."

"Oh!" He wondered if so handsome a girl shared the common rancor of her
age and sex against charming young widows.

"And the worst mannered," continued Isabel, who knew exactly what he
thought. "And plebeian in her marrow. I wish my cousin had chosen Miss
Thangue or any one else."

"But he couldn't marry Flora," said the literal young nobleman. "She
hasn't a penny, and is the friend of all our mothers. But I'm sorry
you've