A vulgar but expressive term, and one in general acceptance ten years ago. One, too, by no means inexpressive of the girl's beauty, for she was beautiful, and in a style that was then uncommon. She had red hair. Nowadays red hair is by no means uncommon; it may be seen hanging in bunches in the _coiffeurs'_ shops, and, with black roots, on the heads of most of the Dryads of the Wood. Ten years ago, to have red hair was to be subjected to chaff by the street-boys, to be called "carrots" by the vulgar, and to be pitied silently by the polite. Red hair _au naturel_ was almost unknown--it was greased, and pomatumed, and cosmetiqued, and flattened into _bandeaux_, and twisted into ringlets, and deepened and darkened and disguised in every possible shape and way; it was "auburn," it was "chestnut," it was anything but red. This girl had red hair, and hated it, but was too proud to attempt to disguise it. So she wore it in a thick dry mass, heavy and crisp, and low on the forehead, and it suited her dead-white skin, creamy white, showing the rising blood on the smallest provocation, and her thin cheeks, and her pointed chin, and her gray eyes, and her long, but slightly impertinent, nose. No wonder people in the street turned round and stared at her; they had been educated up to the raven locks, and the short straight noses, and the rounded chin style of beauty, formed on the true classical model, and they could not understand this kind of thing except in a picture of Mr. Dante Rossetti, or young Mr. Millais, or some of those other new-fangled artists who, they supposed, were clever, but who were decidedly "odd." There was no doubt about her beauty, though, and none about her style. So Paul Derinzy thought, as he looked her up and down on saying the last-recorded words, and marked her tall, _svelte_, lissom figure; her neatly-shod, neatly-gloved feet and hands; her light walk, so free and yet so stately; and the simple elegance of her dress. "You are a stunner, pet, and I adore you! There, having delivered myself of those mild observations, I will suffer you to proceed. You had a lot of things to say to me? Fire away!" "In the first place, why were you not here to meet me, Mr. Douglas?" "Again that detestable formality! Daisy, I swear, if you call me that again, I'll kiss you,--_coram publico, en plein air_, here before everybody; and that child, who will not take its eyes off us, will swallow the hoopstick it is now sucking, and its death will lie at your door." "No, but seriously--where have you been?" "You want to know? Well, then, I don't mind telling you that I've followed you every foot of the way from George Street. Ah, you may well blush, young woman! I was the heartbroken witness of your flirtation with those youths in Bond Street." "Horrid old things! No, but, Paul, did you really follow me from Madame's? Were you there to see me come out?" "My child, I was there for three mortal quarters of an hour before you came out."