“What an interesting face!” said he, as he looked at the photograph. “And she’s an interesting girl too!” said Rose, who was a plain, amiable young woman of six-and-twenty, whom everybody liked and nobody had as yet chosen. “She’s the daughter of a Colonel, who speculated, and then died and left his wife and two girls with scarcely anything to live upon. Papa says it’s one of the saddest stories he knows. They’ve gone to live in a cottage somewhere, after living in one of the most beautiful houses you ever saw in the country, and having a flat in town as well.” Gerard Buckland was looking intently at the photograph, which was that of a quite young woman with an oval face, delicate features, and an expression which combined vivacity with intelligence. “She looks very clever,” he said. “Yes, so she is--and very pretty too.” “Yes, very, very pretty.” He was fascinated; and when he was compelled to look at other photographs, he placed that of the girl whose story he had just heard at the side of the basket, in such a position that he could glance at it again from time to time, and amuse himself by speculating about this girl who was so handsome, so clever, and so unlucky. Rose Aldington noticed his preoccupation with the picture, and said, with a smile-- “I see you admire her, just as everyone else does.” “I was thinking the story a sad one,” said Gerard, rather confused at being discovered in his act of adoration. “Oh, well, perhaps she’ll marry well, and her sister too, and then it will be all right. The sister is even better-looking than Ra--than she is, and just as nice. Only unluckily she hadn’t finished growing up when their father died, so she hasn’t had the benefit of such a good education as the elder.” “It’s hard upon a girl, though, when she has to marry just for money,” observed Gerard. “Oh, yes, of course. And I’m not sure that this particular girl would do it either. But that’s the usual thing to say, isn’t it, when a very pretty girl is left unexpectedly poor?” “Yes.” Gerard answered quite shortly, and looked at the photograph again. And at that moment the door opened, and an exclamation rose to his lips as he recognized in the new arrival the very girl whose picture he held in his hand. He felt the blood rush to his face as he looked at her. He saw at once that the absence of color from the photograph had given him an altogether wrong impression of what the girl herself would be like. She was of medium height, slender, pale, brown-haired, brown-eyed, and her dress was plain almost to dowdiness. But she carried herself so well, her figure was so graceful, her expression so intelligent, and her smile so charming, that she attracted instinctive attention in greater measure than any of the other girls in the room. “Rachel!” cried Mrs. Aldington. “Miss Davison!” cried her son Arthur at the same moment.