Entering through the house into the lawn he encountered Mrs Montacute Jones, who, with a seat behind her on the terrace, surrounded by flowers, was going through the immense labour of receiving her guests.

’How very good of you to come all this way, Lord Silverbridge, to eat my strawberries.’

’How very good of you to ask me!  I did not come to eat your strawberries but to see your friends.’

’You ought to have said you came to see me, you know.  Have you met Miss Boncassen yet?’

‘The American beauty?  No.  Is she here?’

’Yes; and she particularly wants to be introduced to you; you won’t betray me, will you?’

‘Certainly not; I am true as steel.’

’She wanted, she said, to see if the eldest son of the Duke of Omnium really did look like any other man.’

‘Then I don’t want to see her,’ said Silverbridge, with a look of vexation.

’There you are wrong, for there was a real downright fun in the way she said it.  There they are, and I shall introduce you.’  Then Mrs Montacute Jones absolutely left her post for a minute or two, and taking the young lord down the steps of the terrace did introduce him to Mr Boncassen, who was standing there amidst a crowd, and to Miss Boncassen.

Mr Boncassen was an American who had lately arrived in England with the object of carrying out certain literary pursuits in which he was engaged within the British Museum.  He was an American who had nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with trade.  He was a man of wealth and a man of letters.  And he had a daughter who was said to be the prettiest young woman either in Europe or America at the present time.

Isabel Boncassen was certainly a very pretty girl.  I wish that my reader would believe my simple assurance.  But no such simple assurance was ever believed, and I doubt even whether any description will procure for me from the reader that amount of faith which I desire to achieve.  But I must make the attempt.  General opinion generally considered Miss Boncassen to be small, but she was in truth something above the average height of English women.  She was slight, without that look of slimness which is common to girls, and especially to American girls.  That her figure was perfect the reader may believe my word, as any detailed description of her arms, feet, bust, and waist, would be altogether ineffective.  Her hair was dark brown and plentiful; but it added but little to her charms, which depended on other matters.  Perhaps what struck the beholder first was the excessive brilliancy of her complexion.  No pink was every pinker, no alabaster whiteness was ever more like alabaster; but under and around and through it all there was a constant changing hue which gave a vitality to her countenance which no fixed colours can produce.  Her eyes, too, were full of life and brilliancy, and even when she was silent her mouth would speak.  Nor was there a fault within the oval of her face