"I am glad you take it so coolly," says our governor-general, in a matter-of-fact way that rather startles him. "More unlikely things have happened." But he recovers himself directly. "No, no," says he, laughing. "There is one objection. She could not sit on any of the parochial Boards of Strathgovan. Now I know my uncle looks forward to putting me on the Police Committee and the Lighting Committee, and no end of other Committees. By the way, she might go on the School Board. Do they have women on the School Boards in Scotland?" On this point his hostess was no better informed than himself. "Well," said he, after a bit, "I wouldn’t call her pretty, you know; but she has a singularly interesting face." "Oh, do you think so?" says the other, quite innocently. "I do, indeed," answers the ingenuous Youth. "And the more you see of her the more interesting it becomes. You seem to get so well acquainted with her somehow; and—and you have a sort of feeling that her presence is sort of necessary." This was somewhat vague; but he made another wild effort to express himself. "What I mean is—that—that suppose she were to leave the yacht, wouldn’t the saloon look quite different? And wouldn’t the sailing be quite different? You would know there was something wanting." "I should, indeed," is the emphatic reply. "I never knew any one," says the Youth, warming to his work of thorough explanation, "about whose presence you seem so conscious—even when she isn’t here—I don’t mean that exactly—I mean that at this moment now, you know she is on board the yacht—and it would be quite different if she were not. I suppose most people wouldn’t call her pretty. There is nothing of the Book of Beauty about her. But I call it a most interesting face. And she has fine eyes. Anybody must admit that. They have a beautiful, soft expression; and they can laugh even when she is quite silent——" "My dear Mr. Smith," says his hostess, suddenly stopping short, and with a kind of serious smile on her face, "let me talk frankly to you. You acted very sensibly, I think, in coming with us to humour your uncle. He will come to see that this scheme of his is impracticable; and in the meantime, if you don’t mind the discomfort of it, you have a holiday. That is all quite well. But pray don’t think it necessary that you should argue yourself into falling in love with Mary. I am not in her confidence on such a delicate matter; but one has eyes; and I think I might almost safely say to you that, even if you persuaded yourself that Mary would make an excellent wife—and be presentable to your friends—I say even if you succeeded in persuading yourself, I am afraid you would only have thrown that labour away. Please don’t try to convince yourself that you ought to fall in love with her."