slipped from the just note of unexaggerated suavity. Consummate as
an ornament of the drawing-room, she would be no less admirably at
ease on the tennis lawn, in the boat, on horseback, or walking by
the seashore. Beyond criticism her breeding; excellent her
education. There appeared, too, in her ordinary speech, her common
look, a real amiability of disposition; one could not imagine her
behaving harshly or with conscious injustice. Her manners--within
the recognised limits--were frank, spontaneous; she had for the
most part a liberal tone in conversation, and was evidently quite
incapable of bitter feeling on any everyday subject. Piers Otway
bent before her with unfeigned reverence; she dazzled him, she
delighted and confused his senses. As often as he dared look at her,
his eye discovered some new elegance in her attitude, some marvel of
delicate beauty in the details of her person. A spectator might have
observed that this worship was manifest to Mr. Jacks, and that it by
no means displeased him.

"You are very like your father, Mr. Otway," was the host's first
remark after a moment of ceremony. "Very like what he was forty
years ago." He laughed, not quite naturally, glancing at his wife.
"At that time he and I were much together. But he went to London; I
stayed in the North; and so we lost sight of each other for many a
long year. Somewhere about 1870 we met by chance, on a Channel
steamer; yes, it was just before the war; I remember your father
prophesied it, and foretold its course very accurately. Then we
didn't see each other again until a month ago--I had run down into
Yorkshire for a couple of days and stood waiting for a train at
Northallerton. Someone came towards me, and looked me in the face,
then held out his hand without speaking; and it was my old friend.
He has become a man of few words."