But Janet’s elder-sisterly authority was never accepted by the newcomer. “I couldn’t mind her, she looked so ugly,” said she in excuse; and probably the heavy, brown, dull complexion and large features were repulsive in themselves to the sensitive fancy of the creature of life and beauty. At any rate, they were jarring elephants, as said Eleanor, who was growing ambitious, and sometimes electrified the public with curious versions of the long words more successfully used by Armine and Babie. Caroline succeeded in modelling a very lovely profile in bas-relief of the exquisite little head, and then had it photographed. Mary Ogilvie, coming to Kenminster as usual when her holidays began in June, found the photograph in the place of honour on her brother’s chimney-piece, and a little one beside it of the artist herself. So far as Carey herself was concerned, Mary was much better satisfied. She did not look so worn or so flighty, and had a quieter and more really cheerful tone and manner, as of one who had settled into her home and occupations. She had made friends, too--few, but worth having; and there were those who pronounced the Folly the pleasantest house in Kenminster, and regarded the five o’clock tea, after the weekly physical science lecture at the school, as a delightful institution. Of course, the schoolmaster was one of these; and when Mary found how all his paths tended to the Pagoda, she hated herself for being a suspicious old duenna. Nevertheless, she could not but be alarmed by finding that her project of a walking tour through Brittany was not, indeed, refused, but deferred, with excuses about having work to finish, being in no hurry, and the like. “I think you ought to go,” said Mary at last. “I see no ought in the case. Last year the work dragged, and was oppressive; but you see how different it has become.” “That is the very reason,” said Mary, the colour flying to her checks. “It will not do to stay lingering here as we did last summer, and not only on your own account.” “You need not be afraid,” was the muttered answer, as David bent down his head over the exercise he was correcting. She made no answer, and ere long he began again, “I don’t mean that her equal exists, but I am not such a fool as to delude myself with a spark of hope.” “She is too nice for that,” said Mary. “Just so,” he said, glad to relieve himself when the ice had been broken. “There’s something about her that makes one feel her to be altogether that doctor’s, as much as if he were present in the flesh.” “Are you hoping to wear that out? For I don’t think you will.” “I told you I had no hope,” he answered, rather petulantly. “Even were it otherwise, there is another thing that must withhold me. It has got abroad that she may turn out heiress to the old man at Belforest.” “In such a hopeless case, would it not be wiser to leave this place altogether?”