Blow, little cherub, puff your cherubic hardest, never can you waft Flora Le Pettit higher than she now is, at least in the sight of one pair of black eyes, higher, perhaps, than she will ever be again, even in that of her own not uncomplacent orbs. Blow, little cherub, but even if you burst the roseate beads from off your cheeks in your ardour, leaving forlornly drooping the grey threads that would show you as, after all, of mere mortal manufacture, you could not cast a doubt as big as the tiniest bead upon the heavenly origin of Miss Le Pettit--not, at least, in the heart of the devout worshipper born in that instant upon the black woollen doormat. The angelic visitant put up a tortoise-shell lorgnon and examined the newcomer with a flicker of condescending interest. For Flora was a young lady of great sensibility, and though, of course, all females are filled by nature with that interesting and appealing quality, the finer amongst them educate and make an art of it. Miss Le Pettit, then, encouraged her sensibility, nursed it, nourished it, on the most exquisite of novels and the rarest of romances, and these had taught her to show even more sensibility than usual at sight of a barefoot girl with black hair and eyes and an arresting, though wholly unconscious air that could but be described by Miss Le Pettit, to herself and afterwards to her friends, as Italianate. "What an interesting face and figure!" she now exclaimed, at gaze through the lorgnon, as though it were a celestial aid to vision needful for such a long range, as it must be even for angelic eyes looking from the skiey ramparts to a world where bare feet press the earth, to say nothing of woollen doormats. Loveday blenched before that searching gaze, the rare red burned in her cheek and her own eyes sank abashed. She rubbed the flexible sole of one foot in a stiffened curve of shyness against the slim ankle of the other. Mrs. Lear exclaimed aloud in her horror. "Loveday Strick, where are your manners to, that you come into the parlour without a curtsey?" said she. "And indeed, I must ask you to excuse her, ma'am, for she's but a nobody's girl from the village, and doesn't know how to behave before gentry." Mrs. Lear was a good soul, and had ever been kind to Loveday, but she too had her sensibilities, and they were outraged by this untimely intrusion of one world into another which was doubtless unaware even of its existence. But Miss Le Pettit put up a delicate gloved hand in protest. "Nay, you frighten the child, Mrs. Lear," she said kindly, "I am sure she means no disrespect. Did you ... what is your name, girl?' "Loveday, ma'am." "What a strange, old-fashioned name, to be sure," commented the taffetas angel, with a crystal sounding titter, "'tis as good as the heroine in a play. Whom were you called for, child?" "My mother, ma'am," said Loveday, and now her cheek had ceased to burn and looked pale, but she raised her eyes and confronted the vision steadily.