e impulsively went on to make it more
plausible. "He's a very odd boy, and I was afraid you'd misunderstand.
He tells wonderful 'darky stories,' and he'll do anything to draw
coloured people out and make them talk; and that's what he was doing at
Mildred's when you found him for me--he says he wins their confidence
by playing dice with them. In the family we think he'll probably write
about them some day. He's rather literary."

"Are you?" Russell asked, smiling.

"I? Oh----" She paused, lifting both hands in a charming gesture of
helplessness. "Oh, I'm just--me!"

His glance followed the lightly waved hands with keen approval, then
rose to the lively and colourful face, with its hazel eyes, its small
and pretty nose, and the lip-caught smile which seemed the climax of
her decorative transition. Never had he seen a creature so plastic or so
wistful.

Here was a contrast to his cousin Mildred, who was not wistful, and
controlled any impulses toward plasticity, if she had them. "By George!"
he said. "But you ARE different!"

With that, there leaped in her such an impulse of roguish gallantry
as she could never resist. She turned her head, and, laughing and
bright-eyed, looked him full in the face.

"From whom?" she cried.

"From--everybody!" he said. "Are you a mind-reader?"

"Why?"

"How did you know I was thinking you were different from my cousin,
Mildred Palmer?"

"What makes you think I DID know it?"

"Nonsense!" he said. "You knew what I was thinking and I knew you knew."

"Yes," she said with cool humour. "How intimate that seems to make us
all at once!"

Russell left no doubt that he was delighted with these gaieties of hers.
"By George!" he exclaimed again. "I thought you were this sort of girl
the first moment I saw you!"

"What sort of girl? Didn't Mildred tell you what sort of girl I am when
she asked you to dance with me?"

"She didn't ask me to dance with you--I'd been looking at you. You were
talking to some old ladies, and I asked Mildred who you were."

"Oh, so Mildred DIDN'T----" Alice checked herself. "Who did she tell you
I was?"

"She just said you were a Miss Adams, so I----"

"'A' Miss Adams?" Alice interrupted.

"Yes. Then I said I'd like to meet you."

"I see. You thought you'd save me from the old ladies."

"No. I thought I'd save myself from some of the girls Mildred was
getting me to dance with. There was a Miss Dowling----"

"Poor man!" Alice said, gently, and her