"Oh, yes, he admires her very much. He wrote a long article about her in the _Tribune_ once. Do you see the _Tribune_ regularly? Your dear father writes a great deal for it, and I am sure you must appreciate his exquisite writing." "Do you know Miss Kenyon too?" "Oh, yes, I know her very well. And I expect to know her better very soon, because I suppose we shall be connections before long." Lesley looked a smiling inquiry. "I have a younger brother--my brother Oliver," said Mrs. Romaine, with a little laugh; "and younger brothers, dear, have a knack of falling in love. He has fallen in love with Ethel, who is really a nice girl, as well as a pretty and a clever girl, and I believe they will be married by and by." Lesley could not have said why, but somehow at that moment she was distinctly glad of the fact. CHAPTER VIII. OLIVER'S INTENTIONS. "Well, what is she like?" Oliver Trent asked, lightly, of his sister Rosalind, when they met that evening at dinner. "Lesley Brooke? She is a handsome girl," said Mrs. Romaine, with some reserve of manner. "Nothing more?" His sister waited until the servant had left the room before she replied. "I wish you would be discreet, Oliver. My servants are often at the Brookes' with messages. I should not like them to repeat what you were saying." Oliver shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man to whom women's caprices are incomprehensible. But he was silent until dessert was placed upon the table, and Mrs. Romaine's neat parlor-maid had disappeared. "Now," he said, "you can disburthen your mind in peace." "Oliver," said Mrs. Romaine, abruptly. "I want you to make Miss Brooke's acquaintance as soon as you can. I don't understand her, and I think that you can help me." "As how!" "Oh, don't be silly. You always get on with girls, and you can tell me what you think of her." Oliver raised his eyebrows, took a peach from the dish before him, and began to peel it with great deliberation. "Handsome, you say?" "Very." "Like Lady Alice? I remember her; a willowy, shadowy creature, with a sort of ethereal loveliness which appealed very strongly to my imagination when I was a boy." Mrs. Romaine flushed a little. It occurred to her that _she_ had never been called shadowy or ethereal-looking. "She is much more substantial than Lady Alice," she said, drily. "I should say that she had more individuality about her. She looks to me like a girl of character and intellect." "In which case your task will be the more difficult, you mean?" "I don't know what you mean by a task. I have not set myself to do anything definite." "No? Then you are very unlike your sex, Rosalind. I generally find women much too definite--damnably so." "Well, then, I must be an exception. You are always trying to entrap me into damaging admissions, Oliver, and I won't put up with it. All that I want is to be sure that Lady Alice shall not return to her husband. But there is nothing definite in that."