With his blooming complexion and his serene gray eye, he felt the friction of existence more than was suspected; but he asked no allowance on grounds of temper, he assumed that fate had treated him inordinately well and that he had no excuse for taking an ill-natured view of life, and he undertook constantly to believe that all women were fair, all men were brave, and the world was a delightful place of sojourn, until the contrary had been distinctly proved.
Cecilia's blooming garden and shady porch had seemed so friendly to repose and a cigar, that she reproached him the next morning with indifference to her little parlor, not less, in its way, a monument to her ingenious taste.

"And by the way," she added as he followed her in, "if I refused last night to show you a pretty girl, I can at least show you a pretty boy." She threw open a window and pointed to a statuette which occupied the place of honor among the ornaments of the room.

Rowland looked at it a moment and then turned to her with an exclamation of surprise.

She gave him a rapid glance, perceived that her statuette was of altogether exceptional merit, and then smiled, knowingly, as if this had long been an agreeable certainty.
"Who did it?
where did you get it ?" Rowland demanded.
"Oh," said Cecilia, adjusting the light, "it 's a little thing of Mr.
Hudson's." "And who the deuce is Mr.Hudson ?" asked Rowland.

But he was absorbed; he lost her immediate reply.