“I believe it, too, if you are a specimen,” her companion returned, as he gazed admiringly into Mona’s flushed and animated face.

“At any rate,” he added, “you are far more beautiful than the majority of society girls.”

“Mr. Hamblin will please reserve his compliments for ears more eager for and more accustomed to them,” Mona retorted, with a frown of annoyance.

“Why are you so proud and scornful toward me, Miss Richards?” he appealingly asked.  “Can you not see that my admiration for you is genuine—­that I really desire to be your friend?  And why have you avoided me so persistently of late—­why have you rejected my flowers?”

“Because,” Mona frankly answered, and meeting his glance squarely, “I know, and you know, that it is not proper for you to offer, nor for me to accept, such attentions, even if I desired them.”

“I am my own master; you are your own mistress, if, as you say, you are alone in the world; consequently, such a matter lies between ourselves, without regard to what others might consider as ‘proper,’ And I may as well make an open confession first as last,” he went on, eagerly, and bending nearer to her, with a flushed face.  “Ruth, my beautiful Ruth, I love you—­I began to love you that morning when we met on the steps before our own door, and every day has only increased my affection for you.”

A startled look swept over Mona’s face, which had now grown very pale.  She had not had a suspicion that she was destined to hear such a declaration as this; it had taken her wholly unawares, and for a moment she was speechless.

But she soon recovered herself.

“Stop!” she haughtily cried “you have no right to use such language to me; you would not presume—­you would not dare to do so upon so brief an acquaintance, if I stood upon an equal footing with you, socially.  It is only because I am poor and unprotected—­because you simply wish to amuse yourself for a time.  You would not dare to repeat in the presence of Mrs. Montague what you have just said to me.  Now let me pass, if you please, and never presume to address me again as you have to-day.”

The indignant girl looked like some beautiful princess as she stood before him and thus resented the insult he had offered her.

Her slight form was held proudly erect, her small head was uplifted with an air of scorn, her eyes blazed forth angry contempt as they met his, while her whole bearing indicated a conscious superiority which both humiliated and stung her would-be suitor.

She had never appeared so beautiful to him before.  Her face was as pure as a pearl; her glossy hair, falling loosely away from her white forehead, was simply coiled at the back of her small head, thus revealing its symmetrical proportions to the best advantages.  Her great brown eyes glowed and scintillated, her nostrils dilated, her lips quivered with outraged pride and delicacy.