For she was much too pretty to be a nurse, he said to himself--too pretty and too young. She had an air of refinement quite above her position. She had an arch, pretty face, with beautiful blue-gray eyes that were almost black when the full white lids and dark lashes drooped over them. The dazzling fairness of her complexion was heightened by the unrelieved blackness of her dress, and her pouting lips by contrast looked like rosebuds. Two long, thick braids of lovely chestnut-brown hair hung down her back, and some soft, fluffy rings of the same color waved over the low, broad forehead with its slender, dark brows. She was not only beautiful, she looked bright and intelligent, and the half smile that parted her red lips now made her wonderfully lovely. But pretty as she was, she was aware that Captain Lancaster was regarding her with knit brows and a general air of entire disapprobation. Perhaps it was a novel experience. It seemed to amuse her. The dimples deepened around the sweet, arch mouth. She looked down at the card in her hand, and began to read it aloud in a soft, hesitating, inquiring voice: "Cap-tain Lan-caster?" "Yes," he replied, and was on the point of making his most elegant bow when he suddenly remembered that it was not at all necessary to be so ceremonious with the nurse of his housekeeper's niece. So he straightened himself up again and said, almost tartly: "You are the baby's nurse, I presume?" The long fringe of the girl's lashes lifted a moment, and she flashed a dazzling glance into his face. "The--baby?" she inquired. "Yes--the little Miss West--the child that is to get to England under my care. Aren't you her nurse?" The young lady had put a very small, white hand up to her face and coughed very hard for a moment. She looked at him the next moment, very red in the face from the exertion. "I--ah, yes, certainly; I'm the nurse," she replied, demurely. And then ensued a moment's silence, broken at last by the girl, who said, quietly and politely: "Won't you be seated, Captain Lancaster?" He dropped mechanically into a chair near him, but the pretty nurse-maid remained standing meekly in the center of the room, her small hands folded before her, a demure look on her fair face. The caller cleared his throat and began, rather nervously: "It isn't possible that you expected to go to England as that child's nurse?" he said. "I had hoped to do so," answered the girl, with a sudden air of chagrin. "But--ah--really, you know, you're too young, aren't you?" stammered Lancaster, feeling abashed, he knew not why, but maintaining a grave, judicial air. "Too young? I should hope not. I was eighteen last week," lifting the small head with an air of great dignity. He could hardly repress a smile, but he put his long, white hand hastily across his lips to hide it from those bright, keen eyes. "And do you think you can really take good care of Miss West?" he said. "Remember, it is a long trip across the ocean."