simply carry things before you--now you take my word for it! For I know
London pretty well."

She held out her ungloved hands.

"Do they compare with the white hands of the ladies you know?" she said.

"They are about the finest hands I have ever seen," he replied. "You
can't see yourself, sister of mine."

"I do not care very much to see myself," she said. "If I had not a maid
I expect I should look very shiftless, for I don't care to look in a
mirror. My only mirror used to be a stream of water in summer," she
added, "and a corner of a looking-glass got from the Hudson's Bay fort in
the winter."

"Well, you are missing a lot of enjoyment," he said, "if you do not use
your mirror much. The rest of us can appreciate what you would see
there."

She reached out and touched his arm.

"Do you like to look at me?" she questioned, with a strange simple
candour.

For the first time in many a year, Richard Armour blushed like a girl
fresh from school. The question had come so suddenly, it had gone so
quickly into a sensitive corner of his nature, that he lost command of
himself for the instant, yet had little idea why the command was lost.
He touched the fingers on his arm affectionately.