youthful-looking members of the opposite sex. It harmonised with the
peach complexion and the golden hair, and fitted her about as well.

"I am glad of that," answered the stranger, taking the chair
suggested. "I so wish to interest you."

"You're a very bold boy." Miss Kite lowered her fan, for the purpose
of glancing archly over the edge of it, and for the first time
encountered the eyes of the stranger looking into hers. And then it
was that Miss Kite experienced precisely the same curious sensation
that an hour or so ago had troubled Mrs. Pennycherry when the stranger
had first bowed to her. It seemed to Miss Kite that she was no longer
the Miss Kite that, had she risen and looked into it, the fly-blown
mirror over the marble mantelpiece would, she knew, have presented to
her view; but quite another Miss Kite--a cheerful, bright-eyed lady
verging on middle age, yet still good-looking in spite of her faded
complexion and somewhat thin brown locks. Miss Kite felt a pang of
jealousy shoot through her; this middle-aged Miss Kite seemed, on the
whole, a more attractive lady. There was a wholesomeness, a
broadmindedness about her that instinctively drew one towards her.
Not hampered, as Miss Kite herself was, by the necessity of appearing
to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two, this other Miss Kite
could talk sensibly, even brilliantly: one felt it. A thoroughly
"nice" woman this other Miss Kite; the real Miss Kite, though envious,
was bound to admit it. Miss Kite wished to goodness she had never
seen the woman. The glimpse of her had rendered Miss Kite
dissatisfied with herself.

"I am not a boy," explained the stranger; "and I had no intention of
being bold."