striking personal contrast confronted him, in the face of the lady who
was dispensing the hospitalities of the table. Mr. Le Frank's plump
cheeks were, in colour, of the obtrusively florid sort. The relics of
yellow hair, still adhering to the sides of his head, looked as silkily
frail as spun glass. His noble beard made amends for his untimely
baldness. The glossy glory of it exhaled delicious perfumes; the
keenest eyes might have tried in vain to discover a hair that was out
of place. Miss Minerva's eager sallow face, so lean, and so hard, and
so long, looked, by contrast, as if it wanted some sort of discreet
covering thrown over some part of it. Her coarse black hair projected
like a penthouse over her bushy black eyebrows and her keen black eyes.
Oh, dear me (as they said in the servants' hall), she would never be
married--so yellow and so learned, so ugly and so poor! And yet, if
mystery is interesting, this was an interesting woman. The people about
her felt an uneasy perception of something secret, ominously secret, in
the nature of the governess which defied detection. If Inquisitive
Science, vowed to medical research, could dissect firmness of will,
working at its steadiest repressive action--then, the mystery of Miss
Minerva's inner nature might possibly have been revealed. As it was,
nothing more remarkable exposed itself to view than an irritable
temper; serving perhaps as safety-valve to an underlying explosive
force, which (with strong enough temptation and sufficient opportunity)
might yet break out.

"Gently, Mr. Le Frank! The tea is hot--you may burn your mouth. How am
I to tell you what has happened?" Miss Minerva dropped the playfully
provocative tone, with infinite tact, exactly at the right moment.
"Just imagine," she resumed, "a scene on the stage, occurring in
private life. The lady who fainted at your concert, turns out to be no
less a person that Mrs. Gallilee's niece!"