as something called "an air of foreign travel."

They talked a great deal about polish in those days; and some examples
still extant do not deny their justification; but in the case of Mr.
Carewe, there existed a citizen of Rouen, one already quoted, who had
the temerity to declare the polish to be in truth quite nameless and
indescribable for the reason that one cannot paint a vacuum. However,
subscription to this opinion should not be over-hasty, since Mr. Crailey
Gray had been notoriously a rival of Carewe's with every pretty woman
in town, both having the same eye in such matters, and also because the
slandered gentleman could assume a manner when he chose to, whether
or not he possessed it. At his own table he exhaled a hospitable
graciousness which, from a man of known evil temper, carried the
winsomeness of surprise. When he wooed, it was with an air of stately
devotion, combined with that knowingness which sometimes offsets for a
widower the tendency a girl has to giggle at him; and the combination
had been, once or twice, too much for even the alluring Crailey.

Mr. Carewe lived in an old-fashioned house on the broad, quiet, shady
street which bore his name. There was a wide lawn in front, shadowy
under elm and locust trees, and bounded by thick shrubberies. A long
garden, fair with roses and hollyhocks, lay outside the library windows,
an old-time garden, with fine gravel paths and green arbors; drowsed
over in summer-time by the bees, while overhead the locust rasped his
rusty cadences the livelong day; and a faraway sounding love-note from
the high branches brought to mind the line, like an old refrain:

"The voice of the turtle was heard in the land."

Between the garden and the carriage gates there was a fountain where
a bronze boy with the dropsy (but not minding it) lived in a perpetual
bath from a green goblet held over his head. Nearby, a stone sun-dial
gleamed against a clump of lilac bushes; and it was upon this spot that
the white kitten introduced Thomas Vanrevel to Miss Carewe.

Upon the morning after her arrival, having finished her piano-forte
practice, touched her harp twice, and arpeggioed the Spanish Fandango
on her guitar, Miss Betty read two paragraphs of "Gilbert" (for she was
profoundly determined to pursue her tasks with diligence), but the open
windows disclosing a world all sunshine and green leaves, she threw the
book aside with a good conscience, and danced out to the garden. Ther