An overwhelming blush spread over the plain Miss Vibart’s face. “Oh, Pamela Pounce,” she cried, “’twas very silly and cowardly of me, but I didn’t want him to find out. I thought for once I’d know, even on false pretences, what it means to be admired and courted. And oh, my dear creature, yes, I’ll be truthful. I liked him so much from the very first that I couldn’t, I couldn’t make up my mind to his going away and leaving me.” In the pause which ensued, the milliner discreetly waited while last night’s heroine once again fell into a retrospective muse. Suddenly the girl broke out: “’Twas the strangest thing! Our tastes met at every point. ‘Never think, sir,’ cries I to him, ‘to find me entertaining company, for I’m the veriest country mouse----’ ‘Country!’ cries he. ‘Madam, there’s no life for anyone but in the country to my mind. This town existence, what is it? How can anyone but an idiot substitute the fresh air and the green fields and the fine views and the wholesome activities, the pleasant neighbourly intercourse, for this inane round of dissipations in the atmosphere of smoke, the hideous confinement of brick and mortar and the feverish intercourse with strangers between people who can have naught in common, and as like as not can never meet again?’” “La,” cried Pamela, “how you remember it all, Miss! And sure, to my mind, ’twas scarce an auspicious opening.” “Nay, but it was, for it set me off laughing. And, cries I, an idiot and inane! ‘You’re vastly obliging, sir, but pray remember that I, at least, am subject to authority.’ ‘And so am I, madam,’ cried he, ‘’tis by my uncle’s orders that I am in the town, so you and I may perhaps call ourselves the only sane people in a room full of vapidity. And such being the case,’ he went on, ‘you will allow me to add most respectfully that we scarce meet altogether as strangers, and that I trust our first meeting may not be the last.’” The milliner gave a whistle. “Quick work,” quoth she, “a’most like putting on the feathers before the straw is stitched together.”