cabbagy nosegays, the glass gasalier with lustres; the ornamental gilt
rimmed blue candlesticks on the ends of the mantelshelf, also glass-
draped with lustres, and the ormolu clock under a glass-cover in the
middle between them, its uselessness emphasized by a cheap American
clock disrespectfully placed beside it and now indicating 12 o'clock
noon, all combine with the black marble which gives the fireplace the
air of a miniature family vault, to suggest early Victorian commercial
respectability, belief in money, Bible fetichism, fear of hell always at
war with fear of poverty, instinctive horror of the passionate character
of art, love and Roman Catholic religion, and all the first fruits of
plutocracy in the early generations of the industrial revolution.

There is no shadow of this on the two persons who are occupying the
room just now. One of them, a very pretty woman in miniature, her tiny
figure dressed with the daintiest gaiety, is of a later generation,
being hardly eighteen yet. This darling little creature clearly does
not belong to the room, or even to the country; for her complexion,
though very delicate, has been burnt biscuit color by some warmer sun
than England's; and yet there is, for a very subtle observer, a link
between them. For she has a glass of water in her hand, and a rapidly
clearing cloud of Spartan obstinacy on her tiny firm set mouth and
quaintly squared eyebrows. If the least line of conscience could be
traced between those eyebrows, an Evangelical might cherish some faint
hope of finding her a sheep in wolf's clothing - for her frock is
recklessly pretty - but as the cloud vanishes it leaves her frontal
sinus as smoothly free from conviction of sin as a kitten's.

The dentist, contemplating her with the self-satisfaction of a
successful operator, is a young man of thirty or thereabouts. He does
not give the impression of being much of a workman: his professional