the garden. I really cannot be annoyed by her."

"But, Rudolph," his sister protested, "you forget she is engaged to the
Earl of Pevensey. An engaged girl naturally wouldn't care about meeting
any young men."

"H'm!" said the colonel, drily.

Ensued a pause, during which the colonel lighted yet another cigarette.

Then, "I have frequently observed," he spoke, in absent wise, "that all
young women having that peculiarly vacuous expression about the eyes--I
believe there are misguided persons who describe such eyes as being
'dreamy,'--are invariably possessed of a fickle, unstable and coquettish
temperament. Oh, no! You may depend upon it, Agatha, the fact that she
contemplates purchasing the right to support a peculiarly disreputable
member of the British peerage will not hinder her in the least from
making advances to all the young men in the neighborhood."

Miss Musgrave was somewhat ruffled. She was a homely little woman with
nothing of the ordinary Musgrave comeliness. Candor even compels the
statement that in her pudgy swarthy face there was a droll suggestion
of the pug-dog.

"I am sure," Miss Musgrave remonstrated, with placid dignity, "that you
know nothing whatever about her, and that the reports about the earl
have probably been greatly exaggerated, and that her picture shows her
to be an unusually attractive girl. Though it is true," Miss Musgrave
conceded after reflection, "that there are any number of persons in the
House of Lords that I wouldn't in the least care to have in my own