more entirely
natural and honest, but she was odd, strange, out of her own world, and
every one felt it.

It was, perhaps, this strangeness that attracted Paul Trenchard. He
was, above everything, a kindly man-kindly, perhaps a little through
laziness, but nevertheless moved always by distress or misfortune in
others. Maggie was not distressed--she was quite cheerful and entirely
unsentimental--nevertheless she had been very ill, was almost
penniless, had had some private trouble, was an orphan, had no friends
save two old aunts, and was amazingly ignorant of the world.

This last was, perhaps, the thing that struck him most of all. He, too,
was ignorant of the world, but he didn't know that, and he was amazed
at the things that Maggie brushed aside as unimportant. He found that
he was beginning to think of her as "my little heathen." His attitude
was the same as that of a good missionary discovering a naked but
trusting native.

The thought of training this virgin mind was delightful to him.

He liked her quaintness, and one day suddenly, to his own surprise,
when they were alone in the drawing-room, he kissed her, a most chaste
kiss, gently on the forehead.

"Oh. my dear child--" he said in a kind of dismay.

She looked up at him with complete confidence. So gentle a kiss had it
been that it had been no more than a pressure of the hand.

A few days later Katherine spoke to her. She came up to her bedroom
just as Maggie was beginning to undress. Maggie stood in front of the
glass, her evening frock off, brushing her short thick hair before the
glass.

"Have you made any plans yet, dear?" asked Katherine.

Maggie shook her head.

"No." she said. "Not yet."

Katherine hesitated.

"I've got a confession to make," she said at last.

Maggie turned to look at her with her large childish eyes.

"Oh, I do hope you've done something wrong," she said, laughing,
"something really bad that I should have to 'overlook.'"

"What do you mean?" asked Katherine.

Maggie only said: "We'd be more on a level then."

"I don't think it's anything very bad. But the truth is, Maggie, that I
didn't ask you here only for my own pleasure and to make you well.
There was a third reason."

"I know," said Maggie; "Paul."

"My dear!" said Katherine, amazed. "How did you guess? I never should
have done."

"Paul's asked you to find out whether I like him," said Maggie.

"Yes," said Katherine.

"Well, I do like him." said Ma