mock admiration
to the gas-fixture. Then carelessly shifting his glance to the
cleaning-cloth which Fanny held rather conspicuously in her hand, he
repeated the question he had already put to Mrs. Daniels.

The girl, tossing her head just a trifle, at once replied:

"O she was good-looking enough, if that is what you mean, for them as
likes a girl with cheeks as white as this cloth was afore I rubbed the
spoons with it. As for her eyes, they was blacker than her hair, which
was the blackest I ever see. She had no flesh at all, and as for her
figure--" Fanny glanced down on her own well developed person, and gave
a shrug inexpressibly suggestive.

"Is this description true?" Mr. Gryce asked, seemingly of Mrs. Daniels,
though his gaze rested with curious intentness on the girl's head which
was covered with a little cap.

"Sufficiently so," returned Mrs. Daniels in a very low tone, however.
Then with a sudden display of energy, "Emily's figure is not what
you would call plump. I have seen her--" She broke off as if a little
startled at herself and motioned Fanny to go.

"Wait a moment," interposed Mr. Gryce in his soft way. "You said the
girl's hair and eyes were dark; were they darker than yours?"

"O, yes sir;" replied the girl simpering, as she settled the ribbons on
her cap.

"Let me see your hair."

She took off her cap with a smile.

"Ha, very pretty, very pretty. And the other girls? You have other girls
I suppose?"

"Two, sir;" returned Mrs. Daniels.

"How about their complexions? Are they lighter too than Emily's?"

"Yes, sir; about like Fanny's."

Mr. Gryce spread his hand over his breast in a way that assured me of
his satisfaction, and allowed the girl to go.

"We will now proceed to the yard," said he. But at that moment the door
of the front room opened and a gentleman stepped leisurely into the
hall, whom at first glance I recognized as the master of the house. He
was dressed for the street and had his hat in his hand. At the sight
we all stood silent, Mrs. Daniels flushing up to the roots of her gray
hair.

Mr. Blake is an elegant-looking man as you perhaps know; proud,
reserved, and a trifle sombre. As he turned to come towards us, the
light shining through the windows at our right, fell full upon his
face, revealing such a self-absorbed and melancholy expression, I
involuntarily drew back as if I had unwittingly intruded upon a great
man's privacy. Mr. Gryce on the contrary stepped fo