day. Your whole face
was changed, you pet!"

"Did I look so like a fool, Anne?" Ethelrida cried.

Then Lady Anningford laughed happily, as she answered with a roguish
eye,

"It was not exactly that, darling, but your dear cheeks were scarlet,
as though they had been exquisitely kissed!"

"Oh!" gasped Ethelrida, flaming pink, as she laughed and covered her
face with her hands.

"Perhaps he knows how to make love nicely--I am no judge of such
things--in any case, he makes me thrill. Anne, tell me, is that--that
curious sensation as though one were rather limp and yet quivering--is
that just how every one feels when they are in love?"

"Ethelrida, you sweet thing!" gurgled Anne.

Then Ethelrida told her friend about the present of books, and showed
them to her, and of all the subtlety of his ways, and how they appealed
to her.

"And oh, Anne, he makes me perfectly happy and sure of everything; and I
feel that I need never decide anything for myself again in my life!"

Which, taking it all round, was a rather suitable and fortunate
conviction for a man to have implanted in his lady love's breast, and
held out the prospect of much happiness in their future existence
together.

"I think he is very nice looking," said Anne, "and he has the most
perfect clothes. I do like a man to have that groomed look, which I must
say most Englishmen have, but Tristram has it, especially, and Mr.
Markrute, too. If you knew the despair my old man is to me with his
indifference about his appearance. It is my only crumpled rose leaf,
with the dear old thing."

"Yes," agreed Ethelrida, "I like them to be smart--and above all, they
must have thick hair. Anne, have you noticed Francis' hair? It is so
nice, it grows on his forehead just as Zara's does. If he had been bald
like Papa, I could not have fallen in love with him!"

So once more the fate of a man was decided by his hair!

And during this exchange of confidences, while Emily and Mary took a
brisk walk with the Crow and young Billy, Francis Markrute faced his
lady's ducal father in the library.

He had begun without any preamble, and with perfect calm; and the Duke,
who was above all a courteous gentleman, had listened, first with silent
consternation and resentment, and then with growing interest.

Francis Markrute had manipulated infinitely more difficult situations,
when the balance of some of the powers of Europe depended upon his
nerve; but he knew, as he talked to