and she had altered the doing of her hair. There was no doubt
about it, his future wife was a most delectable-looking creature,
but these tendencies toward adornment of the person which he
observed must be checked at once.

They shook hands with decorous cordiality, and Stella sat down
demurely in the vacant chair. She felt as cold as ice toward him,
and looked it more or less. It made Mr. Medlicott nervous,
although she answered gently enough when he addressed her.
Inwardly she was trying to overcome the growing revulsion she was
experiencing. Tricks of speech, movements of hands--even the way
Eustace's hair grew--were all irritating her. She only longed to
contradict every word the poor man said, and she felt wretched and
unjust and at war with herself and fate. At last things almost
came to a point when he moved his chair so that he should be close
to her and a little apart from the others, and whispered with an
air of absolute proprietorship:

"My little Stella has changed her sweetly modest way of
hairdressing. I hardly think the new style is suitable to my
retiring dove."

"Why, it is only parted in the middle and brushed back into a
simple knot," Miss Rawson retorted, with sparkling eyes. "How can
you be so ridiculous, Eustace--it is merely because it is becoming
and more in the fashion that you object, there is nothing the
least remarkable in the style itself."

Mr. Medlicott's thin lips grew into a straight line.