the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding.  That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him.  And for Miss Dallas’s part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman.  She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland.  Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print.

He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,—­with one exception,—­and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care.  The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia.  He had educated her after his own image.  In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself.  This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself.

“So glad to see you—­one sees so little of you—­I can hardly believe my good fortune—­how have I this honor?” All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile.

Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, “Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, ’Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair’—­or something like it.  That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and me voici!”

We have already said that the fault of Farnham’s conversation with women was the soldier’s fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment.  But this was too much in Euphrasia’s manner for her to object to it.  She laughed and said, “You deserve a pensum of fifty lines for such a misquotation.  But, dites-donc, monsieur”—­for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death.  There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham’s opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet.  She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends.