some surprise at discovering her friend in conversation with a man
she did not know; but Eve was equal to the situation, and spoke
calmly.

"This gentleman is from my part of the world--from Dudley. Mr.
Hilliard--Miss Ringrose."

Hilliard stood up. Miss Ringrose, after attempting a bow of formal
dignity, jerked out her hand, gave a shy little laugh, and said with
amusing abruptness--

"Do you really come from Dudley?"

"I do really, Miss Ringrose. Why does it sound strange to you?"

"Oh, I don't mean that it sounds strange." She spoke in a high but
not unmusical note, very quickly, and with timid glances to either
side of her collocutor. "But Eve--Miss Madeley--gave me the idea
that Dudley people must be great, rough, sooty men. Don't laugh at
me, please. You know very well, Eve, that you always talk in that
way. Of course, I knew that there must be people of a different
kind, but--there now, you're making me confused, and I don't know
what I meant to say."

She was a thin-faced, but rather pretty girl, with auburn hair.
Belonging to a class which, especially in its women, has little
intelligence to boast of, she yet redeemed herself from the charge
of commonness by a certain vivacity of feature and an agreeable
suggestion of good feeling in her would-be frank but nervous manner.
Hilliard laughed merrily at the vision in her mind of "great, rough,