s wrong to
disturb the girl's faith in Lady Annesley-Seton's disinterestedness.

"Yes, it's _real_ sweet!" he said, exaggerating his American accent, but
keeping a grave face.

They were duly "at home" that afternoon, though they had intended to go
out, and the caller found them in a private sitting room filled with
flowers, suggesting much money and a love of spending it. Annesley had
put on Knight's favourite frock, one of the "model dresses" he had chosen
for her in their whirlwind rush through Bond Street, a white cloth
trimmed with narrow bands of dark fur; and she had never looked prettier.

Lord Annesley-Seton, a tall thin man of the eagle-nosed soldier type,
wearing pince-nez, but youthful-looking for the forty-four years Burke
gave him, could not help thinking her a satisfactory cousin to pick up:
and Nelson Smith was far from being in appearance the rough, self-made
man he had dreaded.

He was delighted with them both--so young, so handsome, so happy,
so fortunate, and luckily so well bred. He did not make the short
conventional call he had intended, but stayed to tea, and at last went
home to give his wife an enthusiastic account of the visit.

"The girl's a lady, and might be a beauty if she had more confidence in
herself--you know what I mean: taking herself for granted as a charmer,
the way you smart women do," he said. "She isn't that kind. But with you
to show her the ropes, she'll be liked by the right people. There's a
softness and sweetness and genuineness that you don't often see in girls
now. As for the man, you'll think him a ripper, Connie--so will other
women. Has the air of being a gentleman born, and then having roughed it
all over the world. A strong man, I should say. A man's man as well as a
woman's. Might 'take' if he's started right."

"_We'll_ see to that," said Constance Annesley-Seton, who was not too ill
to go out but had not wanted to seem too eager.

She was less than thirty, but looked more because she had worried and
drawn faint lines between her delicate auburn brows and at the corners
of her greenish-gray eyes. There were also a few fading threads in the
red locks which were her one real beauty; but she had a marvellous
hair-varnish which prevented them from showing.

"We'll see to that! If they'll _let_ us. Are they going to let us?"

"Yes, I think so," Annesley-Seton reassured her. "They're a pair of
children, willing to be guided. They can have anything they want in t