Part is nature's; part, the photographer's; part, even possibly paint and powder." "But the underlying face ?" "Is a minx's." I handed her the letter.

"This next ?" I asked, fixing my eyes on her as she looked.
She read it through.

For a minute or two she examined it.

"The letter is right enough," she answered, after a second reading, "though its guileless simplicity is, perhaps, under the circumstances, just a leetle overdone; but the handwriting--the handwriting is duplicity itself: a cunning, serpentine hand, no openness or honesty in it.

Depend upon it, that girl is playing a double game." "You believe, then, there is character in handwriting ?" "Undoubtedly; when we know the character, we can see it in the writing.
The difficulty is, to see it and read it BEFORE we know it; and I have practised a little at that.