le Elma,' `Radiant Miss Ramsden,' `The beauteous
English Rose.' Half the time it's only bluff, but with you it would be
a true bill. You _are_ beautiful. Do you know it?"

The pink flush deepened in Elma's delicate face.

"Am I?" she asked wistfully. "Really? Oh, I hope you are right. I
should be so happy if it were true, but--but, I'm afraid it can't be.
No one notices me; no one seems to think I am--nice! I'm only just Elma
Ramsden--not radiant, nor irresistible, nor anything of the kind. Plain
Elma Ramsden, as much a matter of course as the trees in the park.
Since you came here, in one fortnight, you've had more attention than
I've had in the whole course of my life."

"_Attention_?" echoed Cornelia, shrilly, and rolled her eyes to the
firmament. "Attention? You ken sit there and look me in the face, and
talk about the `attention' that's been paid me the last two weeks!
You're crazed! Where does the attention come in, I want to know? I
haven't spoken to a single man since the day I arrived. You don't call
a dozen old ladies clucking round _attention_, do you? Where _are_ all
the young men, anyhow? I have been used to a heap of men's society, and
I'm kind of lost without it. I call attention having half a dozen nice
boys to play about, and do whatever I want. Don't you ever have any
nice young men to take you round?"

Elma's dissent was tinged with shocked surprise, for she had been
educated in the theory that it was unmaidenly to think about the
opposite sex. True, experience had proved that this was an
impossibility, for thoughts took wing and flew where they would, and
dreams grew of themselves--dreams of someone big, and strong, and
tender; someone who would _understand_, and fill the void in one's heart
which ached sometimes, and called for more, more; refusing to be
satisfied with food and raiment. Sometimes the dream took a definite
shape, insisted on the possession of grey eyes and wide square
shoulders, associating itself with the personality of a certain young
squire of racing, bridge-playing tendencies, at whom all Park dwellers
glanced askance, refusing to him the honour of their hospitality!

There remained, however, certain functions at which this outlaw must
annually be encountered; functions when one was thrillingly conscious of
being signalled out for unusual attention. One remembered, for example,
being escorted to eat ices, under the shade of an arbour of crimson
ramblers;