ness
was not due to absence of self-consciousness. She was a pretty picture
to see. The low-cut dress and fearfully short waist revealed a white
skin and a finely-moulded bust and shoulders. The very scant and
clinging robe was of fine white muslin, with a narrow dainty border of
embroidery at the bottom; and a scarf of the same was thrown round her
shoulders. The round white arms were bare, the little tufty white
sleeves making a pretty break between them and the soft shoulders; and
the little hands were busy with a strip of embroidery, which looked as
if it might be destined for the ornamentation of another similar dress.
The lady's face was delicate, intelligent, and attractive, rather than
beautiful; her eyes, however, as I said, were fine; and over her head
and upon her neck curled ringlets of black, lustrous hair.

'You think he will be here to-day?' she said, breaking the familiar
silence that had reigned for a while. She had caught one of Mrs.
Dallas's glances towards the window.

'He may be here any day. It is impossible to tell. He would come before
his letter.'

'You are very fond of him, I can see. What made you send him away from
you? England is so far off!'

Mrs. Dallas hesitated; put up the end of her knitting-needle under her
cap, and gently moved it up and down in meditative fashion.

'We wanted him to be an Englishman, Betty.'

'Why, Mrs. Dallas? Is he not going to live in America?'

'Probably.'

'Then why make an Englishman of him? That will make him discontented
with things here.'

'I hope not. He was not changed enough for that when he was here last.
Pitt does not change.'

'He must be an extraordinary character!' said the young lady, with a
glance at Pitt's mother. 'Dear Mrs. Dallas, how am I to understand
that?'

'Pitt does not change,' repeated the other.

'But one _ought_ to change. That is a dreadful sort of people, that go
on straight over the heads of circumstances, just because they laid out
the road there before the circumstances arose. I have seen such people.
They tread down everything in their way.'

'Pitt does not change,' Mrs. Dallas said again. Her companion thought
she said it with a certain satisfied confidence. And perhaps it was
true; but the moment after Mrs. Dallas remembered that if the
proposition were universal it might be inconvenient.

'At least he is hard to change,' she went on; 'therefore his father and
I wished him to be educated in the old country, a