petulantly; 'I didn't mean what you think. I
like the music best, only I like----'

'Earrings better--own it!' he said in a teasing tone. 'Well, I think I
should have had the moral courage to own it at once, without pretending
to an elevation I could not reach.'

Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the defensive.
So it was almost with tears in her eyes that she answered desperately:

'My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, because I lost one
of my prettiest pair last year, and papa said he would not buy any more,
or allow me to myself, because I was careless; and now I wish I had some
like them--that's what my meaning is--indeed it is, Mr. Knight.'

'I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,' said Knight, with a look
of regret at seeing how disturbed she was. 'But seriously, if women only
knew how they ruin their good looks by such appurtenances, I am sure
they would never want them.'

'They were lovely, and became me so!'

'Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stuff their
ears with nowadays--like the governor of a steam-engine, or a pair
of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists' palettes, and
compensation pendulums, and Heaven knows what besides.'

'No; they were not one of those things. So pretty--like this,' she said
with eager animation. And she drew with the point of her parasol an
enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would
have suited a giantess half-a-mile high.

'Yes, very pretty--very,' said Knight dryly. 'How did you come to lose
such a precious pair of articles?'

'I only lost one--nobody ever loses both at the same time.'

She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement of
the fingers. Seeing that the loss occurred whilst Stephen Smith was
attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion
was hardly to be wondered at. The question had been awkward, and
received no direct answer.

Knight seemed not to notice her manner.

'Oh, nobody ever loses both--I see. And certainly the fact that it was a
case of loss takes away all odour of vanity from your choice.'

'As I never know whether you are in earnest, I don't now,' she said,
looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of the oracle. And coming
gallantly to her own rescue, 'If I really seem vain, it is that I am
only vain in my ways--not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in
their hearts, and not in their ways.'

'A