Why did you send for me, Beatrice ?" "I have no defence," said the girl, "save that I wanted to see you." "And that is the prettiest defence you could have made--if it does not amount to corruption.

Mr.Torridon, what is the repartee to that ?" "I need no advocate," said the girl; "I can plead well enough." Ralph looked up at her again with a certain interest.

She seemed on marvellously good terms with the whole family, and had an air of being entirely at her ease.

She had her black eyes bent down on to a piece of grass that she was twisting into a ring between her slender jewelled fingers, and her white teeth wore closed firmly on her lower lip as she worked.

Her long silk skirts lay out unregarded on the grass, and her buckles gleamed beneath.