last, unable to restrain herself longer, she made use of some magic
trick to attach the band of youths to her aunt. Then, separating
herself with almost indecent haste from the group, she marched up to
us, gazing--I might say, staring--with large unfriendly eyes at the
intruder.

Brigit promptly accounted for me, however, rolling her "r's"
patriotically because I reminded her of Ireland. "Do let me introduce
Lord Ernest Borrow," she said. "I must have told you about him in my
stories, when you were a child, for he was me first love."

"It was the other way round," I objected. "She wouldn't look at me. I
adored her."

Biddy glared a warning. Her eyes said, "Silly fellow, don't you know
every girl wants to be the one and only love of a man's life?"

I had supposed that this old craze had gone out of fashion. But perhaps
there are a few primitive things which will never go out of fashion
with women.

Now that I had Miss Gilder's proud young face opposite mine, I saw that
it wasn't quite so perfect as I'd fancied when she flashed by in her
tall whiteness. Her nose, pure Greek in profile, seen in full was
--well, just neat American: a straight, determined little
twentieth-century nose. The full red mouth, not small, struck me as being
determined also, rather than classic, despite the daintily drawn
cupid's bow of the short upper lip. I realized too that the
long-lashed, wide-open, and wide-apart eyes were of the usual bluish-gray
possessed by half the girls one knows. And as for the thick wavy hair