"Miss Kingscott, I presume?" Tom asked, bowing politely with his usual frankness. "Whew! By jingo!" ejaculated Markworth, between his teeth. "I'm blessed if it isn't Clara!" Volume 1, Chapter IV. MISS KINGSCOTT. "Who was Miss Kingscott?" "Aye, that would be telling, sure," as a native of the Emerald Isle says when you question him about anything he does not care to disclose. But few persons could give you any satisfactory answer to your enquiry, not even the sharp, shrewd old dowager in whose employ she now was. She might tell you that Miss Kingscott was a governess, a lady's companion-- regarding her in the light of a saleable article of furniture--and that she came to her well recommended, and that she supposed she knew what she professed to teach, and was worth her wages, or she would not be hired; but she personally thought her "a bold hussie," and that was all. Knowledge has its limits, and there Mrs Hartshorne ceased. Who was Miss Kingscott? An easy question on the face of it, but one requiring a very complicated answer. Who was she? Why, _une fille errante_, a nobody's child, a sort of female Bedouin, whose hand was against every man's--and woman's also--as she thought theirs to be against her. A woman young, beautiful, and, beyond all, clever, and not only very clever but heartless, and as devoted to self as she was _sans coeur_. One who could take her part--aye, and play her part--before the world; a fair face with a devil's heart--that is if a devil does have a heart--and great keen basilisk eyes. One who might be anything and everything, for you could hardly judge her as to what _role_ would suit her best, or rather suit her purpose best. A child yesterday, a woman to-day--nay, she could never have been a child. Only a governess now mayhap, but she might be _miladi_ to-morrow if she plays her cards well. Pshaw! she always played her cards well, for there's a rare little plotting head on her well-formed shoulders. Miss Kingscott, _entendez vous_, is a clever woman; one day she may be any character she please, and God knows what the next. Now to sketch her personal attributes. In the ante-passport abolition days an employe in the _Bureau des Passeportes_ might have put her down as follows: _Des yeux--gris; nez--aquilin; teint--pale; cheveux--noirs; et taille moyenne_. In plain English she was a girl--woman that is--of some five feet two in height, of pale--strange the French have no distinction between pale and sallow--complexion, and with black hair and grey eyes. Grey eyes the Gallic officer would call them, but that would not describe them; they were basilisk eyes, eyes that had a depth of cunning, and treachery, and entrancement in them, which no colour term would express.