her aunt.

Haldane was soon satisfied that she was more than pretty--that she was
beautiful. Her features, that had seemed too thin and colorless, flushed
with excitement, and her blue eyes, which he had thought cold and
expressionless, kindled until they became lustrous. He felt, in a way
that he could not define to himself, that her face was full of power and
mind, and that she was different from the pretty girls who had hitherto
been his favorites.

As she rose from the piano he was mastered by one of those impulses
which often served him in the place of something better, and he said
impetuously:

"Miss Romeyn, I beg your pardon. You know a hundred-fold more about
music than I do, and I have been talking as if the reverse were true. I
never heard anything so fine in my life, and I also confess that I never
heard that piece before."

The young girl blushed with pleasure on having thus speedily vanquished
this superior being, whom she had been learning both to dread and
dislike. At the same time his frank, impulsive words of compliment did
much to remove the prejudice which she was naturally forming against
him. Mrs. Arnot said, with her mellow laugh, that often accomplished
more than long homilies:

"That is a manly speech, Egbert, and much to your credit. 'Honest
confession is good for the soul.'"

Haldane did not get on his stilts again that evening, and before it was