belonging to the estate, and so on.  The father didn’t encourage her fancy for it, naturally, being Scotch and Presbyterian.  However, he died of fever, and then the child at sixteen fell into her uncle’s charge.  He seems to have seen at once exactly what line to take.  To put it cynically, I imagine he argued something like this:  “Beauty extraordinary—­character everything that could be desired—­talent not much.  So that the things to stake on are the beauty and the character, and let the talent take care of itself.”  Anyhow, he got her on to the Kingston theatre—­a poor little place enough—­and he and the aunt, that sour-looking creature you saw with her, looked after her like dragons.  Naturally, she was soon the talk of Kingston:  what with her looks and her grace and the difficulty of coming near her, the whole European society, the garrison, Government House, and all, were at her feet.  Then the uncle played his cards for a European engagement.  You remember that Governor Rutherford they had a little time ago? the writer of that little set of drawing-room plays—­Nineteenth Century Interludes, I think he called them?  It was his last year, and he started for home while Isabel Bretherton was acting at Kingston.  He came home full of her, and, knowing all the theatrical people here, he was able to place her at once.  Robinson decided to speculate in her, telegraphed out for her, and here she is, uncle, aunt, and invalid sister into the bargain.’

‘Oh, she has a sister?’

’Yes; a little, white, crippled thing, peevish—­cripples generally are—­but full of a curious force of some hidden kind.  Isabel is very good to her, and rather afraid of her.  It seems to me that she is afraid of all her belongings.  I believe they put upon her, and she has as much capacity as anybody I ever knew for letting herself be trampled upon.’

‘What, that splendid, vivacious creature!’ said Kendal incredulously.  ’I think I’d back her for holding her own.’

‘Ah, well, you see,’ said the American, with the quiet superiority of a three weeks’ acquaintance, ’I know something of her by now, and she’s not quite what you might think her at first sight.  However, whether she is afraid of them or not, it’s to be hoped they will take care of her.  Naturally, she has a splendid physique, but it seems to me that London tries her.  The piece they have chosen for her is a heavy one, and then of course society is down upon her, and in a few weeks she’ll be the rage.’

‘I haven’t seen her at all,’ said Kendal, beginning perhaps to be a little bored with the subject of Miss Bretherton, and turning, eye-glass in hand, towards the sculpture.  ‘Come and take me some evening.’

’By all means.  But you must come and meet the girl herself at my sister’s next Friday.  She will be there at afternoon tea.  I told Agnes I should ask anybody I liked.  I warned her—­you know her little weaknesses!—­that she had better be first in the field:  a month hence, it will be impossible to get hold of Miss Bretherton at all.’