y--only Mrs. Bryce and her husband
did not like her. They say she is a very unsatisfactory person, and so
difficult to understand.'

'Poor Mrs. Blake,' ejaculated her cousin, 'to be judged before the Bryce
tribunal and found wanting!'

'Don't be ridiculous, Michael!' replied Mrs. Harcourt, in her
good-tempered way; 'of course you take her part simply because she is
accused: you are like Audrey in that.'

'You see we are both genial persons; but, seriously, Mrs. Blake's list
of misdemeanours seems absurdly trifling. She is very handsome; that is
misdemeanour number one, I believe.'

'My dear,' observed Mrs. Ross placidly at this point, for she had been
too busy counting her stitches to concern herself with the strife of
words, 'Geraldine only mentioned that as a fact: she remarked that Mrs.
Blake was a very prepossessing person, that she had rather an uncommon
type of beauty.'

'That makes her all the more interesting,' murmured Captain Burnett,
with his eyes half closed. 'I begin to feel quite excited about this
Mrs. Blake. I do delight in anything out of the common.'

'Oh, Edith never denied that she was fascinating. She is a clever woman,
too; only there were certain little solecisms committed that made her
think Mrs. Blake was not a thorough gentlewoman. They are undoubtedly
very poor; and though, of course, that is no objection, it is so absurd
for people in such a position to try and ignore their little shifts and
contrivances. Honest poverty is to be respected, but not when it is
allied to pretension.'

'My dear Gage, was it you or Mrs. Bryce who made that exceedingly clever
speech! It was really worthy of Dr. Johnson; it only wanted a "Sir" to
point the Doctor's style. "Sir, honest poverty is to be respected, but
not when it is allied to pretension"--a good, thorough Johnsonian
speech! And so the poor woman is poor?'

'Yes, but no one minds that,' returned Mrs. Harcourt, somewhat hastily.
'I hope you do not think that anything in her outward circumstances has
prejudiced my sister-in-law against her. As far as that goes, Mrs. Blake
deserves credit; she has denied herself comforts even to give her son a
good education. No, it is something contradictory in the woman herself
that made the Bryces say they would never get on with her. She is
impulsive, absurdly impulsive; and yet at the same time she is reserved.
She has a bad temper--at least, Edith declares she has heard her
scolding her servant in no measu