“Is it? Oh, what a beautiful dress! and quantities of diamonds. Almost too many; they twinkle like water, as if some one had squeezed a sponge over her.” “What can you do when you’re a bonanza king’s daughter and as ugly as that? You’ve got to keep up your end of the line some way. She evidently thinks diamonds are the best way.” Essex took the glass and looked at the bedecked heiress again. After some moments he put it down and turned to Mariposa with a quizzical smile. “Do you know I’m going to say something very funny, but look at her well. Does she look like anybody you know?” The girl looked and shook her head: “Like her father a little,” she said, “but no one else I can think of.” “No, not her father. Some one you know intimately and see often--very often, if you’re as vain as you ought to be.” “Who?” she demanded, frowning and looking puzzled; “I can’t think whom you mean.” “Yourself; she looks like you.” Mariposa gave a quick look at the girl and then at Essex. For the moment she thought he was mocking her, but with her second look at the box, the likeness suddenly struck her. “She is,” she said slowly, reaching for the glass; “yes,” putting it down, “I see it--she is. How funny! and fancy your telling me on top of the statement that she was so ugly! I don’t see how I can smile again this evening.” She smiled with the words on her lips, the charming smile of a woman who knows her silliest phrases are delightful to one man at least. “I’m not entirely like her?” she asked, with a somewhat anxious air; “I haven’t got those pale-gray, prominent eyes, have I?” “No, you’ve got mysterious dark eyes, as deep as wells, and when I look into them, down, down, I sometimes wonder if I can see your heart at the bottom. Can I? Let me see.” He leaned forward as if to look straight into her eyes. Mariposa suddenly flushing and feeling uncomfortable, dropped them. The sensation she so often experienced with Essex, of being awkward and raw, was intensified now by the annoyed embarrassment provoked by the florid gallantry of his words. But she was too inexperienced a little fly to deal with this cunning spider, and tangled herself worse in the web by saying nervously: “And my nose! I haven’t got that kind of nose? Oh, surely not,” putting up a gloved hand to feel of its unsatisfactoriness. “You have the dearest little nose in the world, straight as a Greek statue’s. It’s a little bit haughty, but I like it that way. And your mouth,” he dropped his voice slightly, “your mouth--” Mariposa made a sudden movement of annoyance. She threw up her head and looked at the curtain with frowning brows. “Don’t,” she said sharply, “I don’t like you to talk about me like that.” Essex was silent, regarding her profile with a deliberating eye and a slight, amused smile. How crude she was and how handsome! After a moment’s silence, he leaned toward her and said in a voice full of good-humored banter: