She was seventeen, and looked so fair, so delicate, in her almost childish loveliness of outline and expression, that Florence's white skin became haggard and hard in comparison. Her slight figure was displayed to full advantage by a well-made riding-habit, and under her correct little high hat her golden hair shone like sunshine. There was a soft color in her cheeks, a freshness on her smiling lips, that made the observer long to kiss them, as if they belonged to some simple child. Her manner too was almost that of a child--frank, naive, direct, and unembarrassed; but in her eyes there lurked a shadow which contradicted the innocent simplicity of her expressive countenance. If was not a shadow of evil, but of sadness, of a subdued melancholy--the sadness of a girl whose life had been darkened in early life by some undeserved calamity. It was a look that redeemed her face from the charge of inanimateness that might otherwise have been brought against it, and gave it that faintly sombre touch which was especially fascinating to a man like Hubert Lepel. He continued to talk to the General, who had questions to ask him concerning his travels and his friends; but his eyes followed the movements of the girl as she stepped quietly about the room, pouring out tea for one, carrying cake and biscuits to another. Twice he sprang up to assist her, but was met with a smile and a shake of the head from her, and the assurance from her uncle that Enid liked waiting on people--he need not try to take her vocation from her. He had to sit down again, and thought, half against his will, of that other Enid--Tennyson's Enid, in her faded gown--and of Prince Geraint's desire to kiss the dainty thumb "that crossed the trencher as she set it down." He at least was no Geraint, he said to himself, to win this gentle maiden's heart. But he watched her nevertheless, with a growing admiration which was not a little dangerous. With a faint cynical smile Florence noted the direction of his eyes. As soon as her husband and his niece entered the room, she had lapsed into the graceful indolent silence which seemed habitual to her. Enid brought her a cup of tea, and ministered to her wants with assiduity and gentleness of manner, though, as Hubert thought, with no great show of affection; and Florence accepted the girl's attentions with perfect equanimity and a caressing word of two of thanks. And yet Hubert fancied--he knew not why--that there was no look of love in Flossy's drooping eyes. "Please may I come in?" said Master Dick's small treble at the door. He was a fair, blue-eyed little fellow, but not much like either his father or his mother, thought Hubert, as the child stood in the doorway and looked rather doubtfully into the room. Florence's brow contracted for a moment. "Why are you not having your nursery-tea?" she said. "We do not want you here unless we send for you." "I want to see uncle Hubert," persisted the boy stolidly.