Browne. "I mean, it was such a pretty gown, that we should have been
glad to be able to admire another yard or two of it. But perhaps that
terrible George won't give it to her; and perhaps she liked herself as
she was. '_Nuda veritas_.' After all, there is nothing like it. 'Honesty
is the best policy,' and all that sort of thing--eh?"

"Dicky," says Sir Mark, austerely, "go away! We have had quite enough of
you."

"How did you all like the McPhersons?" Dulce asks, hurriedly.

"Now, there was one thing," says Dicky, who is not to be repressed, "how
could any fellow enjoy himself in the room with the McPhersons? That
eldest girl clings on to one like ivy--and precious tough old ivy too.
She clung to me until I was fain to sit down upon the ground and shed
salt and bitter tears. I wish she had stayed amongst her gillies, and
her Highland flings, and those nasty men who only wear breeks, instead
of coming down here to inflict herself upon a quiet, easy-going county."

"Why didn't you get her another partner, if you were tired of her?"

"I couldn't. I appealed to many friends, but they all deserted me in my
hour of need. They wouldn't look at her. She was 'single in the field,
yon solitary Highland lass.' She wasn't in the swim at all; she would
have been as well--I mean, much better--at home."

"Poor girl," says Portia.

"She isn't poor, she's awfully rich," says Roger. "They are all rich.
They positively look at the world through a golden veil."

"They'd want it," says Dicky, with unrelenting acrimony; "I christened
'em the Heirs and Graces--the boys are so rich, and the girls think
themselves so heavenly sweet. It is quite my own joke, I assure you.
Nobody helped me." Here he laughs gaily, with a charming appreciation of
his own wit.

"Did she dance well?" asks Stephen, waking up suddenly from a lengthened
examination of the unconscious Dulce's fair features. An examination,
however, overseen by Roger, and bitterly resented by him.

"She didn't dance at all, she only galumphed," says Dicky, wrathfully.
"She regularly took the curl out of me; I was never so fatigued in my
life. And she is so keen about it, too; she will dance, and keeps on
saying, 'Isn't it a pity to lose this lovely music?'--and so on. I
wished myself in the silent grave many times."

"Well, as bad as she is, I'd make an even bet she will be married before
her sister," says Stephen.

"I don't think either of them will be married before the ot