But Susie is the lively one. Susie would be a flirt, if she dared, and if any man were bold enough to flirt with her under Miss Amelia's eye. Susie is barely fifty-five, and her elder sisters regard her as a mere child, and are very ready with reproof and correction. Susie has a pink and white complexion, a soft fat little face, and plump dimpled hands; and Susie is given to vanity. Jim Airth held open the door of the coffee-room for her one day, and Susie--I should say Susannah--has been in a flutter ever since. Poor naughty Susie! Miss Murgatroyd has changed her place at meals--they have a table in the centre of the room--and made her sit with her back to Jim Airth; who has a round table, all to himself, in the window. Now I must tell you about Jim Airth, and of a curious coincidence connected with him, which you must not repeat to the doctor, for fear he should move me on. Let me confess at once, that I am extremely interested in Jim Airth--and it is sweet and generous of me to admit it, for Jim Airth is not in the least interested in me! He rarely vouchsafes me a word or a glance. He is a bear, and a savage; but such a fine good-looking bear; and such a splendid and interesting savage! He is quite the tallest man I ever saw; with immense limbs, lean and big-boned; yet moves with the supple grace of an Indian. He was through that campaign last year, and had a terrible turn of sunstroke and fever, during which his head was shaved. Consequently his thick brown hair is now at the stage of standing straight up all over it like a bottle-brush. I know Susie longs to smooth it down; but that would be a task beyond Susie's utmost efforts. His brows are very stern and level; and his eyes, deep-set beneath them, of that gentian blue which makes one think of Alpine heights. They can flash and gleam, on occasions, and sometimes look almost purple. He wears a heavy brown moustache, and his jaw and chin are terrifying in their masterful strength. Yet he smokes an old briar pipe; whistles like a blackbird; and derives immense amusement from playing up to naughty Susie's coyness, when the cameo brooch is turned another way. I have seen his eyes twinkle with fun when Miss Susannah has purposely let fall her handkerchief, and he has reached out a long arm, picked it up, and restored it. Whereupon Susie has hastened out, in the wake of her sisters, in a blushing flutter; Miss Eliza turning to whisper: "Oh, my dear love! Oh Susannah!" I try, when these things happen, to catch Jim Airth's merry eye, and share the humour of the situation; but he stolidly sees the wall through me on all occasions, and would tread heavily on _my_ poor handkerchief, if I took to dropping it. Miss Murgatroyd tells me that he is a confirmed hater of feminine beauty; upon which poor Miss Susannah takes a surreptitious prink into the gold-framed mirror over the reception-room mantelpiece, and says, plaintively: "Oh, do not say that,