next pane to atoms. Mr. B—— quickened his pace, hearing the crash,
and came round the corner with his most judicial and infuriated air,
rather hoping to pack the culprit out of the place, only to be met
by his favourite daughter. "Papa, I'm so sorry, I've broken the
greenhouse with my racquet. May I send for Smith? I'll pay him out of
my own money."

The Eton boy adored her from that day forth; and so did other people
for similar reasons.

I, personally, always rather wondered that Arthur was ever attracted
by Miss B——, for he was very fastidious, and the least suggestion
of aiming at effect or vulgarity, or hankering after notoriety, would
infallibly have disgusted him. But this was the reason.

She was never vulgar, never self-conscious. She acted on each
occasion on impulse, never calculating effects, never with reference
to other people's opinions.

A gentleman once said, remonstrating with her for driving alone with
a Cambridge undergraduate in his dog-cart down to Richmond after a
ball, "People are beginning to talk about you."

"What fools they must be!" said Miss B——, and showed not the
slightest inclination to hear more of the matter.

There is no question, I think, that Arthur's grave and humorous ways
attracted her. He, when at his best, was a racy and paradoxical
talker—with that natural tinge of veiled melancholy or cynicism
half-suspected which is so fascinating, as seeming to imply a