"Indeed I sha'n't! Nonsense; it's a beautiful name! Rupert Denison! It suits him; it suits me. Bertha, you can't deny it's a handsome, noble face, like a Vandyke portrait of Charles I, or one of those people in the National Gallery. And he must take a certain amount of interest in me, because he wants me to learn more, to be more cultured. He's so accomplished! He knows simply everything. The other day he sent me a book about the early Italian masters." "Did he, though? How jolly!" "A little volume of Browning, too--that tiny edition, beautifully bound." Bertha made an inarticulate sound. "And you know he found out my birthday, and sent me a few dark red roses and Ruskin's Stones of Venice." "Nothing like being up to date," said Bertha. "Right up to the day after to-morrow! Rupert always is. How did he find out your birthday?" "How do you suppose?" "I can't think. By looking in _Who's Who?_--going to Somerset House or the British Museum?" "How unkind you are! Of course not. No--I told him." "Ah, I thought perhaps it was some ingenious plan like that. I should think that's the way he usually finds out things--by being told." "Bertha, why do you sneer at him?" "Did I?--I didn't mean to. Why does he behave like a belated schoolmaster?" "Behave like a--oh, Bertha!" Madeline was trying to be offended, but she could not succeed. It was nearly impossible to be angry with Bertha, when she was present. There were many reasons for this. Bertha had a small arched mouth, teeth that were tiny and white and marvellously regular, a dimple in her left cheek, long eyelashes that gave a veiled look to the eyes, and a generally very live-wax-dollish appearance which was exceedingly disarming. There was a touch, too, of the china shepherdess about her. But, of course, she was not really like a doll, nor remote from life; she was very real, living and animated; though she had for the connoisseur all the charm of an exquisite _bibelot_ that is not for sale. * * * * *