saw no just cause or impediment why women should not do
anything for which they have a special fitness. Now I feel politics
will be my speciality, and I would not canvass for any one unless I
quite understood their views."

"Well, my Parliamentary career is in the far future," Paul interposed;
"and certainly I should not give my sanction to your undertaking any
work of that kind at present. You are much too young, and much too----"

"Pretty, were you going to add?" broke in Sally, with a ripple of
laughter. "I'm afraid not: enthusiastic would be the more likely
adjective for you to use concerning me. Besides I don't think I am
pretty. 'My dear,' said that candid old Miss Sykes to me the other
day, 'you might have been very good-looking if all your features were
as good as your eyes.' Why do ladies of a certain age take it for
granted that they can say what they choose to the budding young woman?
It annoys me frightfully. Oh, Paul!" with a sudden lowering of her
voice, "talking of pretty, there's a perfectly lovely girl who is
seated with her mother at the third table from ours. Don't turn your
head too quickly or she will think we are talking of her; and then you
can keep your head turned in the direction of the band. Her profile
comes in between it and you."

Paul did as he was bid. Sally was right, the girl to whom she directed
his attention was lovely beyond compare; and yet there was something in
her face that failed to satisfy him. The very perfection, too, of
everything about her, gave him a feeling of unconscious irritation.

"Well?" asked Sally, when he turned back to her.

"She's beautiful, certainly; but I don't like her."

"It's just because you did not discover her first."

Paul did not trouble to answer; there was a general stir amongst the
company. The concert was drawing to a close, and the burghers of
Brussels began to think of home and bed. The wives slipped their
knitting into their pocket; the husbands bestowed a passing nod and
guttural good night to each other as they moved away; and the twinkling
lights began to be extinguished one by one. In the crowd at the
entrance Paul and Sally found themselves close to the girl whom Sally
had so greatly admired. She was talking in low, clear tones to her
mother.

"Ought not to have come? What nonsense, mother! It has been quite an
amusing experience to see the way these people pass their evenings;
they are quite nice and respectable