first time in her life.

"I have half a mind to tell him that!" cried Marian. "It will do him
good. He's so terribly conceited."

"Conceited?" said Catherine, staring.

"So Arthur says, and Arthur knows about him."

"Oh, don't tell him!" Catherine murmured imploringly.

"Don't tell him he's conceited? I have told him so a dozen times."

At this profession of audacity Catherine looked down at her little
companion in amazement. She supposed it was because Marian was going
to be married that she took so much on herself; but she wondered too,
whether, when she herself should become engaged, such exploits would
be expected of her.

Half an hour later she saw her Aunt Penniman sitting in the embrasure
of a window, with her head a little on one side, and her gold eye-
glass raised to her eyes, which were wandering about the room. In
front of her was a gentleman, bending forward a little, with his back
turned to Catherine. She knew his back immediately, though she had
never seen it; for when he had left her, at Marian's instigation, he
had retreated in the best order, without turning round. Morris
Townsend--the name had already become very familiar to her, as if
some one had been repeating it in her ear for the last half-hour--
Morris Townsend was giving his impressions of the company to her
aunt, as he had done to herself; he was saying clever things, and