her of Mr. Ruskin. He had a singular face--a face built for swiftness
and decision rather than for massive contemplation; the forehead
broad, the nose long and formidable, the lips clean-shaven and at once
dogged and sensitive, the cheeks lean, with a deeply running tide of
red blood in them. His eyes, expressive now of the usual masculine
impersonality and authority, might reveal more subtle emotions under
favorable circumstances, for they were large, and of a clear, brown
color; they seemed unexpectedly to hesitate and speculate; but
Katharine only looked at him to wonder whether his face would not have
come nearer the standard of her dead heroes if it had been adorned
with side-whiskers. In his spare build and thin, though healthy,
cheeks, she saw tokens of an angular and acrid soul. His voice, she
noticed, had a slight vibrating or creaking sound in it, as he laid
down the manuscript and said:

"You must be very proud of your family, Miss Hilbery."

"Yes, I am," Katharine answered, and she added, "Do you think there's
anything wrong in that?"

"Wrong? How should it be wrong? It must be a bore, though, showing
your things to visitors," he added reflectively.

"Not if the visitors like them."

"Isn't it difficult to live up to your ancestors?" he proceeded.

"I dare say I shouldn't try to write poetry," Katharine replied.

"No. And that's what I should hate. I couldn't bear my grandfather to