"Perhaps they are, but it's the fault of my arms. They _are_ so pretty! Look at that ikkle, ikkle dimple... You wouldn't have the heart to hide it!" returned Grizel, shutting one eye so as to peer with the other at the soft, infantile dents above the elbow. In praise or blame she was always markedly honest as regarded her own appearance. Even when Martin made his appearance at the door, and came to the sudden stand as if dazzled by the glittering apparition in the middle of the dark room, Grizel seemed to see no reason for changing her pose, but continued to peer and to crane with undiminished interest. "I'm showing Katrine a bonnie wee dimple... This side, to the west! I can just peer at it like this, but it's beautiful viewed from the side, I wear my sleeve cut short `a pupos.' ... This is the dress that the Duck wears, Martin, the night she's engaged. He hadn't intended to speak so soon, but when he saw her in it he couldn't resist--" "I'm sure he couldn't--!" Martin's echo came back with what his sister considered a painful banality. She flinched before it, as at a desecration. When one is accustomed to regard a man as seated on a permanent pinnacle of grief, it is a shock to find him condescending to the ordinary barter of compliment, but Martin was oblivious of her frown, for Grizel had opened her closed eye, and peered upward into his face with her sweet, lazy smile. He gave her his arm, led her in to dinner, arranged her chair, and groped under the table for a footstool, leaving Katrine to follow, alone and unnoticed. Never in all the years they had lived together had he thought of a footstool for his sister's feet! As there was only one of these articles in common use, she was obliged to do without the ordinary support, and the feeling of discomfort lasted throughout the meal. The curtains were undrawn, leaving a vista of garden sloping upward to the knoll, the low panelled room was already dim, and the table was lighted by candles in tall silver stands. A bowl of beautifully cut old glass was piled high with roses, and the meal was dainty and well chosen, for Katrine was on her mettle before Grizel's quizzical eyes. Martin sat at the head of the table; he had the long thin face, the deep-set eyes, the sensitive lips, which carry the mind instinctively to the days of old. For him a stock and a fob would have seemed more appropriate than twentieth-century attire. His eyes looked particularly dark to-night; he held himself buoyantly erect. Grizel rested both elbows on the table, and began feeding herself with fragments of bread, before the soup was served. "Excuse my bad manners. They're _so_ fashionable!" she mumbled in explanation. She attacked her soup with a zest which one would hardly have expected from so fragile a creature, and took little part in the conversation until it was finished. Then once more she rested her elbows on the table, and smiled across at her host.