closely through
her glasses. "The eyes are wonderful, Arnold. They are eyes I know. As
if I could ever forget them! They are the same eyes, exactly the same
eyes. I have never met with any like them before. They are the eyes of
my poor, lost, betrayed Claude Deseret. Where did you pick up this
girl, Arnold? Is she a common model?"

"Not at all. She is not a model. She is a young lady who teaches by
correspondence. She is my tutor--of course I have so often talked to
you about her--who taught me the science of Heraldry, and wrote me
such charming letters."

"Your tutor! You said your tutor was an old gentleman."

"So I thought, Clara. But I was wrong. My tutor is a young lady, and
this is her portrait, half-finished. It does not do her any kind of
justice."

"A young lady!" She looked suspiciously at Arnold, whose telltale
cheek flushed. "A young lady! Indeed! And you have made her
acquaintance."

"As you see, Clara; and she does me the honor to let me paint her
portrait."

"What is her name, Arnold?"

"She is a Miss Aglen."

"Strange. The Deserets once intermarried with the Aglens. I wonder if
she is any connection. They were Warwickshire Aglens. But it is
impossible--a teacher by correspondence, a mere private governess! Who
are her people?"

"She lives with her grandfather. I think her father was a tutor or
journalist of some kind, but he is dead; and her grandfather keeps a
second-hand bookshop in the King's Road close by."

"A bookshop! But you said, Arnold, that she was a young lady."

"So she is, Clara," he replied simply.

"Arnold!" for the first time in his life Arnold saw his cousin angry
with him. She was constantly being angry with other people, but never
before had she been angry with him. "Arnold, spare me this nonsense.
If you have been playing with this shop-girl I cannot help it, and I
beg that you will tell me no more about it, and do not, to my face,
speak of her as a lady."

"I have not been playing with her, I think," said Arnold gravely; "I
have been very serious with her."

"Everybody nowadays is a young lady. The girl who gives you a cup of
tea in a shop; the girl who dances in the ballet; the girl who makes
your dresses."

"In that case, Clara, you need not mind my calling Miss Aglen a young
lady."

"There is one word left, at least: women of my class are gentlewomen."

"Miss Aglen is a gentlewoman."

"Arnold, look me in the face. My dear boy, tell me, are you mad? Oh,