est cackling laugh.

"Well, you must show me this phoenix," he was saying in a nasal voice to
Sorell, who had been talking eagerly. "Young women of the right sort are
rare just now."

"What do you call the right sort, Master?"

"Oh, my judgment doesn't count. I only ask to be entertained."

"Well, talk to her of Rome, and see if you are not pleased."

The Master shrugged his shoulders.

"They can all do it--the clever sort. They know too much about the
Forum. They make me wish sometimes that Lanciani had never been born."

Sorell laughed.

"This girl is not a pedant."

"I take your word. And of course I remember her father. No pedantry
there. And all the scholarship that could be possibly expected from an
earl. Ah, is this she?"

For in the now crowded hall, filled with the chatter of many voices, a
group was making its way from the doorway, on one member of which many
curious eyes had been already turned. In front came Mrs. Hooper,
spectacled, her small nose in air, the corners of her mouth sharply
drawn down. Then Dr. Ewen, grey-haired, tall and stooping; then Alice,
pretty, self-conscious, provincial, and spoilt by what seemed an
inherited poke; and finally a slim and stately young person in white
satin, who carried her head and her long throat with a remarkable
freedom and self-confidence. The head was finely shaped, and the eyes
brilliant; but in the rest of the face the features were so delicate,
the mouth, especially, so small and subtle, as to give a first
impression of insignificance. The girl seemed all eyes and neck, and the
coils of brown hair wreathed round the head were disproportionately rich
and heavy. The Master observing her said to himself--"No beauty!" Then
she smiled--at Sorell apparently, who was making his way towards
her--and the onlooker hurriedly suspended judgment. He noticed also that
no one who looked at her could help looking again; and that the nervous
expression natural to a young girl, who realises that she is admired but
that policy and manners forbid her to show any pleasure in the fact, was
entirely absent.

"She is so used to all her advantages that she forgets them," thought
the Master, adding with an inward smile--"but if we forgot them--perhaps
that would be another matter! Yes--she is like her mother--but taller."

For on that day ten years earlier, when Ella Risborough had taken Oxford
by storm, she and Lord Risborough had found time to look in on the
Master for t