habit of believing anything you men folk tell us. It's really quaint!"

"Stop rotting, and tell me about yourself; and a truce to heiresses and
Cleopatras. You know I'm dying to hear."

"Not a syllable, until you've told me about _your_self. Where you're
going, and what the dickens for!"

We laughed into each other's eyes. To do so, I had to look a long way
down, and she a long way up. This in itself is a pleasantly Victorian
thing for a man to do in these days of Jerrybuilt girls, on the same
level or a story or two higher than himself. I'm not a tall man: just
the dull average five foot ten or eleven that appears taller, while it
keeps lean--so naturally I have a hopeless yearning for nymph-like
creatures who pretend to be engaged when I ask them to dance. Still,
there's consolation and homely comfort in talking with a little woman
who makes you feel the next best thing to a giant. Biddy is an
old-fashioned five foot four in her highest heels; and as she smiled up at
me I saw that she hadn't changed a jot in the last ten years, despite
the tragedy that had involved her. Not a silver thread in the black
hair, not a line on the creamy round face.

"You're just yourself," I said.

"I oughtn't to be. I know that very well. I ought to be a Dido and
Niobe and Cassandra rolled into one. I'm a brute not to be dead or look
a hag. I've gone through horrors, and the secrets I know could put
dozens of people in prison, if not electrocute them. But you see I'm
not the right type of person for the kind of life I've had, as I should
be if I were in a story book, and the author had created me to suit my