"Yes," I answered, gravely. "Well, I should be able to judge, who have seen you both and am not an old friend. And I think you are both like and unlike. Your sister has beautiful eyes"--she lowered hers swiftly--"and hair like yours, but her manner and style are different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time--and on many after occasions," I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at the queer little figure I conjured up. "Thank you," she replied--and for some reason she blushed to her ears. "That, I think, must be enough of compliments for to-night--as you are not an old friend." And she turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our acquaintance was in the bud, and as susceptible to over-warmth as to a temperature below zero. A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her cheek lingered, as she swept past me with a wondrous show of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place, and we talked of the "land of berries," and our adventures there, while the rest--older friends--listened indulgently or struck in from time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies. I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why, they get more joy--I am fain to think they do--out of a scrambling tea up three pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the same materials--and comfort withal--in their own house. I imagine it is for the same reason that the bachelor finds a charm in a lady's drawing-room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind. A charm and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests' drawing-room--a room rich in subdued colours and a cunning blending of luxury and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt myself alone. Mr. Guest had passed on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of these people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I had been in the habit of rather despising "society." Miss Guest was at the piano, the centre of a circle of soft light, which showed up a keen-faced, close-shaven man leaning over her with the air of one used to the position. Every one else was so fully engaged that I may have looked, as well as felt, forlorn; at any rate, meeting her eyes I could have fancied she was regarding me with amusement--almost with triumph. It must have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier-- "There, Jack, Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so that I don't want you any longer. Perhaps you won't mind stepping up to the schoolroom--Fräulein and Clare are there--and telling Clare, that--that--oh, anything."