qualifications she married a barrister with
most satisfactory prospects. They were both extremely fond of one
another in a quiet way, and fond they remained. She was disposed of
satisfactorily.

Louie was prettier and more lively. She was having a gay career of
flirtations, when Henrietta joined her. She did not at all want a
younger sister, particularly a sister with a pretty complexion. Three
years of parties had begun to tell on her own, which was of special
delicacy. She and Henrietta had never grown to like one another, and now
there went on a sort of silent war, an unnecessary war on Louie's side,
for she had a much greater gift with partners than Henrietta, and her
captives were not annexed.

But for her complexion there was nothing very taking in Henrietta.
Whoever travels in the Tube must have seen many women with dark-brown
hair, brown eyes, and too-strongly-marked eyebrows; their features are
neither good nor bad; their whole aspect is uninteresting. They have no
winning dimples, no speaking lines about the mouth. All that one can
notice is a disappointed, somewhat peevish look in the eyes. Such was
Henrietta. The fact that she had not been much wanted or appreciated
hitherto began to show now she was eighteen. She was either shy and
silent, or talked with too much positiveness for fear she should not be
listened to; so that though she was not a failure at dances and managed
to find plenty of partners, there were none of the interesting episodes
that were continually occurring on Louie's evenings, and for a year or
two her hopes were not realized. The Prince Charming she was waiting for
came not.

Sometimes Louie was away on visits, and Henrietta went to dances
without her. At one of these, as usual a strange young man was
introduced. There was nothing special about him. They had the usual talk
of first dances. Then he asked for a second, then for a third. He was
introduced to her mother. She asked him to call. He came. He talked
mostly to her mother, but it was clear that it was Henrietta he came to
see. Another dance, another call, and meetings at friends' houses, and
wherever she was he wanted to be beside her. It was an exquisitely happy
month. He was a commonplace young man, but what did that matter? There
was nothing in Henrietta to attract anyone very superior. And perhaps
she loved him all the more because he was not soaring high above her,
like all her previous divinities, but walking side by sid