Our host led me across the room, and introduced me to "Miss Chislett." [Illustration: It was only a quiet dinner party, and Miss Chislett had brought out her needlework.] She was not the sort of person I expected.

It just flashed across me that I understood something of Polly's remark about Frances Chislett making her feel "rough." My cousins were ladies in every sense of the term, but Miss Chislett had a certain perfection of courteous grace and dignified refinement, in every word, and gesture, and attitude, as utterly natural to her as the vigorous tread of any barefooted peasant girl, and which one does meet with (but by no means invariably) among women of the highest class in England.

Her dignity fell short of haughtiness (which is not high breeding, and is very easy of assumption); her grace and courtesy were the simple results of constant and skilful consideration for other people, and of a self-respect sufficient to dispense with self-consciousness.

The advantage of wealth was evident in the exquisite taste and general effect of her costume.

She was not beautiful, and yet I felt disposed for an angry argument with my cousins on the subject of her looks.