ut began
directly to examine critically the face before me. "I want you to tell
me the truth. We don't value flattery from our own sex; at least, I do
not."

I could see no trace of time's unwelcome tooth in that smooth, ivory
skin, as unwrinkled as a baby's face, while the rounded outlines and
dimples would have graced a debutante.

"You are a long time deciding," she said, playfully--the color coming
fitfully under my scrutiny.

"I will hazard twenty, but you may be older."

"You think not any younger than that?" The curving lashes drooped and an
entirely new expression swept over the charming face.

"Now you look almost a child," I exclaimed with surprise. "You are a
mystery to me, and I won't try to guess any more, for it is pure guess
work."

She laughed merrily. "You are greatly mistaken. I was twenty-six
yesterday." I may have looked incredulous, and she was very keen to read
my thoughts.

"You do not believe me. Did you ever hear of a woman over twenty making
herself out older than she was?"

"My experience is but limited." I still believed that for some reason of
her own she was deceiving me respecting her age.

"When you hear my story your surprise will be that I do not look six and
thirty, instead of a decade younger."

Her next question was more startling than the first. "How do you like Mr.
Winthrop?"

I replied guardedly that I liked him very well.

"Excuse me, but that is not a correct reply. No one that cares for him at
all does so in that moderate fashion. They either love or hate him."

"Have you ever known him intimately enough to be able to say how he is
liked, or deserves to be?"

She answered me by a low ripple of laughter. My perplexity was
increasing, but I quite decided this Hermione Le Grange, as she called
herself, had not a very sad heart to get comforted.

"Do you find Mr. Winthrop very amiable, in fact would you call him a
lady's man?"

I paused to think carefully what answer I should give. "If he were a
lady's man, probably before this he would have taken one for a wife."

"You have only answered half of my question," she said so gently I could
not resent it.

"My guardian is very patient and indulgent with me. If he were more so I
should find it hard to leave him some day."

"You mean when the day of marriage comes?"

"I have not thought anything of marriage yet. I mean, not seriously.
Every young girl has her dreams, I suppose; but mine as yet are very
vague a