smile. "But I've no need to tell you that."

"No, she is not bad looking," observed his wife with a slight sneer; "few
girls would be in such elegant attire; but it surprises me to see that,
with all her advantages and opportunities for improvement, she has not yet
lost that baby expression she always had. She'll never be half the woman
Enna is."

The days were past in which the lady mother had gloried in the fact that
anywhere Enna would have been taken for the elder of the two; and now the
contrast between her faded, fretful face and Elsie's fresh bloom was a
sore trial to madam's love, and pride in her household pet.

But no one deemed it necessary to reply to the unpleasant remark. Elsie
only smiled up into her father's face as he came forward and stood at her
side, and meeting his look of loving content and pride in her, just as she
was, and calling to mind how fully satisfied with her was another, whose
loving approbation was no less precious, turned away with a half-breathed
sigh of heartfelt happiness, finished her greetings, and, the dinner-bell
ringing at that moment, accepted Walter's offered arm to the dining-room.

Arthur was more and more charmed with his niece as he noted the modest
ease and grace of her manners, both at the table, and afterwards in the
drawing-room; listened to her music--greatly improved under the
instructions of some of the first masters of Europe--and her conversation
with his father and others, in which she almost unconsciously revealed
rich stores of varied information gathered from books, the discourse of
the wise and learned met in her travels, and her own keen yet kindly
observations of men and things. These, with the elegance of her diction,
and the ready play of wit and fancy, made her a fascinating talker.