she carried a tiny barking dog.

Muriel was a good daughter to her mother, and an exemplary character in
every way, but the odd thing was that few people liked her. This was the
more tragic as it was the desire of her heart to be popular. Her
appearance was attractive, and strangers usually began acquaintance with
enthusiasm, but the attraction rarely survived the first hour's talk.
She was like a very well-coloured and delightful-looking apple that is
without flavour. She was never natural--always aping someone. Her
enthusiasms did not ring true, her interest was obviously feigned, and
she had that most destroying of social faults, she could not listen with
patience, but let her attention wander to the conversation of her
neighbours. It seemed as if she could never talk at peace with anyone
for fear of missing something more interesting in another quarter.

"You look very nice, Muriel! I'm glad I told you to put on that dress,
and that new way of doing your hair is very becoming." One lovable thing
about Mrs. Duff-Whalley was the way she sincerely and openly admired
everything that was hers. "Now, see and do your best to make the evening
go. Mr. Elliot takes a lot of amusing, and the Jowetts aren't very
lively either."

"Is that all that's coming?" Muriel asked.

"I asked the new Episcopalian parson--what's his name?--yes--Jackson--to
fill up."

"You don't often descend to the clergy, mother."

"No, but Episcopalians are slightly better fitted for society than
Presbyterians, and this young man seems quite a gentleman--such a
blessing, too, when they haven't got wives. Dear, dear, I told Dickie
not to send in any more of that plant--what d'you call it?" (It was a
peculiarity of Mrs. Duff-Whalley that she never could remember the names
of any but the simplest flowers.) "I don't like its perfume. What was I
saying? Of course, I only got up this dinner on the spur of the moment,
so to speak, when I met Mr. Elliot in the Highgate. He comes and goes so
much you never know when he's at Laverlaw; if you write or telephone
he's always got another engagement. But when I met him face to face I
just said, 'Now, when will you dine with us, Mr. Elliot?' and he hummed
and hawed a bit and then fixed to-night."

"Perhaps he didn't want to come," Muriel suggested as she snuggled one
of the small dogs against her face. "And did it love its own mummy,
then, darling snub-nose pet?"

Her mother scouted the idea.

"Why should he