y father dotes on
me and gives me everything I ask for. I know at least a score of men who
regard me as the last thing in feminine perfection. I am perfectly
content to remain as I am."

Sylvia Jackson, fair haired, ethereal, as Desmond O'Connor had described
her, with large, rather sleepy, blue eyes, looked at Kathleen O'Connor
in surprise.

"But you may fall in love," suggested Kathleen.

"Love? I really don't know what it means. I have always liked to have a
few men about me and know that they will do whatever I ask, even to
destroying themselves. But the passion is on their side."

The two girls were sitting in Kathleen's room, in evening dress, as they
had come from the annual club ball in Grey Town. There was a fire in the
grate, a lamp in a corner of the room was lighted and half turned up,
but it shed a very subdued light on the room.

Kathleen remembered that Desmond had done his utmost at the ball to
monopolise Sylvia Jackson, that they had disappeared for a considerable
portion of the evening. She could still see her brother's flushed face
and sparkling eyes as he returned from some dark corner with Sylvia on
his arm. She had hoped to hear an avowal of love from Mrs. Quirk's
guest.

"I fancied----," she began in a disappointed voice.

"Of course I like Desmond," said Sylvia Jackson, divining her thought.
"He is so fresh and unconventional that we all like him at home. He is
the very nicest boy I know; but I am like a mother or an elder sister to
him. Why, I am centuries older than Desmond, not in actual years, but in
knowledge of the world. I shall find him a charming girl-wife, like you
are, but I shall always expect him to remain on my staff."

"After he is married?" cried Kathleen.

"Why not? It is a recognised thing, I assure you. But I suppose we must
go to bed. What an ugly man Mr. Denis Quirk is! Really, he is the
ugliest man I ever met!"

"That is because you don't know him. Mr. Quirk's face is the worst part
of him," said Kathleen.

"I have a dread of ugly men. I select my staff with particular attention
to good looks. What queer old people those Quirks are! The old woman
should be in the kitchen; I am sure she would feel more at home there."

Now, if there was one subject upon which Kathleen felt keenly, it was
the virtues of Mrs. Quirk. She well knew that the old lady was laughed
at and derided behind her back; but no one had dared hitherto to speak
disrespectfully of her to Kathleen