eremptoriness of tone which seemed
to Rowland to denote a considerable advance in intimacy. As Rowland
entered, Christina was losing patience. "Do it yourself, then!" she
cried, and with a rapid movement unloosed the great coil of her tresses
and let them fall over her shoulders.

They were magnificent, and with her perfect face dividing their rippling
flow she looked like some immaculate saint of legend being led to
martyrdom. Rowland's eyes presumably betrayed his admiration, but her
own manifested no consciousness of it. If Christina was a coquette, as
the remarkable timeliness of this incident might have suggested, she was
not a superficial one.

"Hudson 's a sculptor," said Rowland, with warmth. "But if I were only a
painter!"

"Thank Heaven you are not!" said Christina. "I am having quite enough of
this minute inspection of my charms."

"My dear young man, hands off!" cried Mrs. Light, coming forward and
seizing her daughter's hair. "Christina, love, I am surprised."

"Is it indelicate?" Christina asked. "I beg Mr. Mallet's pardon." Mrs.
Light gathered up the dusky locks and let them fall through her fingers,
glancing at her visitor with a significant smile. Rowland had never
been in the East, but if he had attempted to make a sketch of an old
slave-merchant, calling attention to the "points" of a Circassian
beauty, he would have depicted such a smile as Mrs. Light's. "Mamma 's
not really shocked," added Christina in a moment, as if she had guessed
her mother's by-play. "She is only afraid that Mr. Hudson might have
injured my hair, and that, per consequenza, I should sell for less."

"You unnatural child!" cried mamma. "You deserve that I should make a
fright of you!" And with half a dozen skillful passes she twisted the
tresses into a single picturesque braid, placed high on the head, as a
kind of coronal.

"What does your mother do when she wants to do you justice?" Rowland
asked, observing the admirable line of the young girl's neck.

"I do her justice when I say she says very improper things. What is one
to do with such a thorn in the flesh?" Mrs. Light demanded.

"Think of it at your leisure, Mr. Mallet," said Christina, "and when you
've discovered something, let us hear. But I must tell you that I shall
not willingly believe in any remedy of yours, for you have something in
your physiognomy that particularly provokes me to make the remarks that
my mother so sincerely deplores. I noticed it the fi