When an old gentleman came to their table, and startled them a little by turning over the picture-books. He was an ancient beau--the daintiest of old gentlemen--with a blue coat and a white waistcoat, and the most delicate of ruffles. His hair--so much as he had--was perfectly white, and his high bald forehead, and even his face, looked like a piece of ivory curiously carved into wrinkles. He was not by any means a handsome old man, yet it was evident enough that this peculiar look and studied dress belonged to a notability, whose coat and cambric, and the great shining diamond upon whose wrinkled ashen-white hand, belonged to his character, and were part of himself. He was an old connoisseur, critic, and fine gentleman, with a collection of old china, old jewels, rare small pictures, and curious books, enough to craze the whole dilettanti world when it came to the prolonged and fabulous sale, which was its certain end. And he was a connoisseur in other things than silver and china. He was somewhat given to patronising young people; and the common judgment gave him credit for great kindness and benignity. But it was not benignity and kindness which drew Mr Agar to the side of Agnes and Marian. Personal amusement was a much more prevailing inducement than benevolence with the dainty old dilettante. They were deceived, of course, as youth is invariably; for despite the pure selfishness of the intention, the effect, as it happened, was kind. Mr Agar began a conversation by remarking upon the books, and drew forth a shy reply from both; then he managed gradually to change his position, and to survey the assembled company along with them, but with his most benign and patriarchal expression. He was curious to hear in words those comments which Agnes constantly made with her eyes; and he was pleased to observe the beauty of the younger sister--the perfect unconscious grace of all her movements and attitudes. They thought they had found the most gracious of friends, these simple girls; they had not the remotest idea that he was only a connoisseur. “Then you do not know many of those people?” said Mr Agar, following Agnes’s rapid glances. “Ah, old Lady Knightly! is that a friend of yours?” “No; I was thinking of the old story of ‘Thank you for your Diamonds,” said Agnes, who could not help drawing back a little, and casting down her eyes for the moment, while the sound of her own voice, low as it was, brought a sudden flush to her cheek. “I did not think diamonds had been so pretty; they look as if they were alive.” “Ah, the diamonds!” said the old critic, looking at the unconscious object of Agnes’s observation, who was an old lady, wrinkled and gorgeous, with a leaping, twinkling band of light circling her time-shrivelled brow. “Yes, she looks as if she had dressed for a masquerade in the character of Night--eh? Poor old lady, with her lamps of diamonds! Beauty, you perceive, does not need so many tapers to show its whereabouts.”