"Who is Mr. Greenbank? You had to flee from him--you said he was horrid,
I believe?"

Miss Delburg had removed her hat, and was trying to tidy her hair before
readjusting it; she had the hat-pin in her mouth, but took it out to
answer vehemently:

"So he is, a pig! And I went and got engaged to him this morning! You
see," turning to the glass again, quite unembarrassed, "I can't get my
money until I am married--and Uncle is so disagreeable, and Aunt Jemima
nags all day long, and it was left in Papa's will that I was to live
with them--and I don't come of age until I am twenty-one, but I can get
the money directly if I marry--I was seventeen in May, and of course no
one could stand it till twenty-one! Mr. Greenbank is the only person
who has asked me, and Aunt Jemima says no one else ever will! I have
been out of the Convent for a whole month, and I can't bear it."

Michael was beginning really to enjoy himself. She was something so
fresh, so entirely different to anything he had ever seen in his life
before. There was nothing of shyness or awkwardness in her manner, as
any English girl would have shown. She was absolutely at ease, with a
childish, confiding innocence which he saw plainly was real, and not put
on for his benefit. It was almost incredible in these up-to-date days. A
most engaging morsel of seventeen summers, he decided, as he answered
with over-grave concern:

"What a hard fate!--but you have not told me yet why you ran away!"

The girl had finished her toilet by now, and reseated herself with a