Young Mrs. Thornycroft again looked down uneasily at her dress--not from overmuch vanity, but because her hounded mind recurred instinctively from extraneous or large interests to individual and lesser ones. “Is there really any one particular coming, my dear? Of course, _you_ have no trouble about evening dress; mourning is such easy comfortable wear.” (Agatha turned her head quickly aside.) “That handsome silk of yours looks quite well still; and mamma there,” glancing at the contentedly knitting Mrs. Hill--“old ladies never require much dress; but if you had only told me to prepare for company----” “Pretty company! Merely our own circle--Dr. Ianson, Mrs. Ianson, and Miss Ianson--you need not mind outshining her now----” “No, indeed! I am married.” “Then the 'company' dwindles down to two besides yourselves; Major Harper and his brother.” “Oh! What sort of a person is the brother?” “I really don't know; I have never seen him. He is just come home from Canada; the youngest of the family--and I hate boys,” replied Agatha, running the sentences one upon the other in her quick fashion. “The youngest of the family--how many are there in all?” inquired the elder lady, her friendly anxiety being probably once more on matrimonial thoughts intent. “I am sure, Mrs. Hill, I cannot tell. I have never seen any of them but Major Harper, and I never saw him till my poor father died; all which circumstances you know quite well, and Emma too; so there is no need to talk a thing twice over.” From her occasional mode of speech, some people might say, and did say, that Agatha Bowen “had a temper of her own.” It is very true, she was not one of those mild, amiable heroines who never can give a sharp word to any one. And now and then, probably from the morbid restlessness of unsatisfied youth--a youth, too, that fate had deprived of those home-ties, duties, and sacrifices, which are at once so arduous and so wholesome--she had a habit of carrying, not only the real black kitten, but the imaginary and allegorical “little black dog,” on her shoulder. It was grinning there invisibly now; shaking her curls with short quick motion, swelling her rich full lips--those sort of lips which are glorious in smiles, but which in repose are apt to settle into a gravity not unlike crossness. She was looking thus--not her best, it must be allowed--when a servant, opening the drawing-room door, announced “Visitors for Miss Bowen.” The first who entered, very much in advance of the other, appeared with that easy, agreeable air which at once marks the gentleman, and one long accustomed to the world in all its phases, especially to the feminine phase; for he bowed over Agatha's hand, and smiled in Agatha's now brightening face, with a sort of tender manliness, that implied his being used to pleasing women, and having an agreeable though not an ungenerous consciousness of the fact.