rning Miss Mavis had paid her a long visit.
She knew nothing about anything, but her intentions were good and she
was evidently in her own eyes conscientious and decorous. And Mrs.
Nettlepoint concluded these remarks with the exclamation 'Poor young
thing!'

'You think she is a good deal to be pitied, then?'

'Well, her story sounds dreary--she told me a great deal of it. She fell
to talking little by little and went from one thing to another. She's in
that situation when a girl _must_ open herself--to some woman.'

'Hasn't she got Jasper?' I inquired.

'He isn't a woman. You strike me as jealous of him,' my companion added.

'I daresay _he_ thinks so--or will before the end. Ah no--ah no!' And I
asked Mrs. Nettlepoint if our young lady struck her as a flirt. She gave
me no answer, but went on to remark that it was odd and interesting to
her to see the way a girl like Grace Mavis resembled the girls of the
kind she herself knew better, the girls of 'society,' at the same time
that she differed from them; and the way the differences and
resemblances were mixed up, so that on certain questions you couldn't
tell where you would find her. You would think she would feel as you did
because you had found her feeling so, and then suddenly, in regard to
some other matter (which was yet quite the same) she would be terribly
wanting. Mrs. Nettlepoint proceeded to observe (to such idle
speculations does the vanity of a sea-voyage give encouragement) that
she wondered whether it were better to be an ordinary girl very well
brought up or an extraordinary girl not brought up at all.

'Oh, I go in for the extraordinary girl under all circumstances.'

'It is true that if you are _very_ well brought up you are not
ordinary,' said Mrs. Nettlepoint, smelling her strong salts. 'You are a
lady, at any rate. _C'est toujours ca._'

'And Miss Mavis isn't one--is that what you mean?'

'Well--you have seen her mother.'

'Yes, but I think your contention would be that among such people the
mother doesn't count.'

'Precisely; and that's bad.'

'I see what you mean. But isn't it rather hard? If your mother doesn't
know anything it is better you should be independent of her, and yet if
you are that constitutes a bad note.' I added that Mrs. Mavis had
appeared to count sufficiently two nights before. She had said and done
everything she wanted, while the girl sat silent and respectful. Grace's
attitude (so far as her mother was concerned