chin in his hand, sat buried in profound thought. "_Were_ they blue?" he
murmured to himself aloud, "or _were_ they brown? Blue begins with a _b_
and brown begins with a _b_. I'm convinced that her eyes began with a
_b_. They were not, therefore, gray or green, because," he added in a
burst of confidence, "it is utterly impossible to spell gray or green
with a _b_!"

Miss Southerland looked slightly astonished.

"All you can recollect, then, is that the color of her eyes began with
the letter _b_?"

"That is absolutely all I can remember; but I _think_ they
_were_--brown."

"If they _were_ brown they must be brown now," she observed, looking out
of the window.

"That's true! Isn't it curious I never thought of that? What are you
writing?"

"Brown," she said, so briefly that it sounded something like a snub.

"Mouth?" inquired the girl, turning a new leaf on her pad.

"Perfect. Write it: there is no other term fit to describe its color,
shape, its sensitive beauty, its--_What_ did you write just then?"

"I wrote, 'Mouth, ordinary.'"