"I suppose you are very tired of hearing such things," she said, "but I owe you so much." This was not quite justifiable, for Miss Cardiff was only a successful writer in the magazines, whose name was very familiar to other people who wrote in them, and had a pleasant association for the reading public.

It was by no means fame; she would have been the first to laugh at the magniloquence of the word in any personal connection.
For her father she would accept a measure of it, and only deplored that the lack of public interest in Persian made the measure small.

She had never confessed to a soul how largely she herself was unacquainted with his books, and how considerably her knowledge of her father's specialty was covered by the opinion that Persian was a very decorative character.

She could not let Elfrida suppose that she thought this anything but a politeness.
"Oh, thanks--impossible!" she cried gaily.

"Indeed, I assure you it is months since I heard anything so agreeable," which was also a departure from the strictest verity.
"But truly! I'm afraid I am very clumsy," Elfrida added, with a pretty dignity, "but I should like to assure you of that." "If you have allowed me to amuse you now and then for half an hour it has been very good of you," Janet returned, looking at Miss Bell with rather more curious interest than she thought it polite to show.