to say first that I'd be a sister to him! But the American half slapped
the French half, and said: "What silly nonsense! Don't be an idiot, if
you can help it. The man's behaving beautifully. And it will just do you
good to have your vanity stepped on, you conceited little minx!"

"Oh, I've plenty of faults, I'll tell you to start with--plenty you may
have noticed already, and plenty more you haven't had time to notice
yet," said my new relative. "I'm a sulky brute, for one thing, and I've
got to be a pessimist lately, for another--a horrid fault, that!--and I
have a vile temper--"

"All those faults might be serviceable in a _brother_," I said. "Though
in any one else--"

"In a friend or a lover, they'd be unbearable, of course; I know that,"
he broke in. "But who'd want me for a friend? And as for a lover, why,
I'm struck off the list of eligibles, forever--if I was ever on it."

After that, we ate our luncheon as fast as we could (a very bad habit,
which I don't mean to keep up for man or brother), and even though the
others had begun long before we did, we finished while they were still
cracking nuts and peeling apples, their spirits somewhat subdued by the
Englishman's presence.

"The great folk won't have got their money's worth for nearly an hour
yet," said Mr. Dane. "Don't you want to go and have a look at the
Cathedral? There are some grand things to see there--the triptych called
'Le Buisson Argent,' and some splendid old tapestry in the choir; a
whole wall and some marble columns from a Roman temple of Apollo--oh,
and you mustn't forget to look for the painting of St. Mitre the Martyr