immaturity of her corsage, but both were in good taste, and really to
the advantage of her young figure. There was reason and justice in her
being dressed as she was, for she really was not so old as she looked by
two or three years; and there was reason in Mrs. Bowen's carrying in the
hollow of her left arm the India shawl sacque she had taken off and hung
there; the deep cherry silk lining gave life to the sombre tints
prevailing in her dress, which its removal left free to express all the
grace of her extremely lady-like person. Lady-like was the word for Mrs.
Bowen throughout--for the turn of her head, the management of her arm
from the elbow, the curve of her hand from wrist to finger-tips, the
smile, subdued, but sufficiently sweet, playing about her little mouth,
which was yet not too little, and the refined and indefinite perfume
which exhaled from the ensemble of her silks, her laces, and her gloves,
like an odorous version of that otherwise impalpable quality which women
call style. She had, with all her flexibility, a certain charming
stiffness, like the stiffness of a very tall feather.

"And have you been here a great while?" she asked, turning her head
slowly toward Colville, and looking at him with a little difficulty she
had in raising her eyelids; when she was younger the glance that shyly
stole from under the covert of their lashes was like a gleam of
sunshine, and it was still like a gleam of paler sunshine.

Colville, whose mood was very susceptible to the weather, brightened in
the ray. "I only arrived last night," he said, with a smile.

"How glad you must be to get back! Did you ever see Florence more
beautiful than it was this morning?"

"Not for years," said Colville, with another smile for her pretty