judge of character profoundly.  This new object of alarm was, as the General had said of her, tall and slim, a friend of neatness, plainly dressed, but exquisitely fitted, in the manner of Frenchwomen.  She spoke very readily, not too much, and had the rare gift of being able to speak fluently with a smile on the mouth.  Vulgar archness imitates it.  She won and retained the eyes of her hearer sympathetically, it seemed.  Rosamund thought her as little conscious as a woman could be.  She coloured at times quickly, but without confusion.  When that name, the key of Rosamund’s meditations, chanced to be mentioned, a flush swept over Miss Denham’s face.  The candour of it was unchanged as she gazed at Rosamund, with a look that asked, ’Do you know him?’

Rosamund said, ‘I am an old friend of his.’

‘He is here now, in this town.’

‘I wish to see him very much.’

General Sherwin interposed:  ’We won’t talk about political characters just for the present.’

‘I wish you knew him, papa, and would advise him,’ his daughter said.

The General nodded hastily.  ‘By-and-by, by-and-by.’

They had in fact taken seats at a table of mutton pies in a pastrycook’s shop, where dashing military men were restrained solely by their presence from a too noisy display of fascinations before the fashionable waiting-women.

Rosamund looked at Miss Denham.  As soon as they were in the street the latter said, ‘If you will be good enough to come with me, madam . . .?’ Rosamund bowed, thankful to have been comprehended.  The two young ladies kissed cheeks and parted.  General Sherwin raised his hat, and was astonished to see Mrs. Culling join Miss Denham in accepting the salute, for they had not been introduced, and what could they have in common?  It was another of the oddities of female nature.

’My name is Mrs. Culling, and I will tell you how it is that I am interested in Captain Beauchamp,’ Rosamund addressed her companion.  ’I am his uncle’s housekeeper.  I have known him and loved him since he was a boy.  I am in great fear that he is acting rashly.’

‘You honour me, madam, by speaking to me so frankly,’ Miss Denham answered.

‘He is quite bent upon this Election?’

’Yes, madam.  I am not, as you can suppose, in his confidence, but I hear of him from Dr. Shrapnel.’

‘Your uncle?’

‘I call him uncle:  he is my guardian, madam.’

It is perhaps excuseable that this communication did not cause the doctor to shine with added lustre in Rosamund’s thoughts, or ennoble the young lady.

‘You are not relatives, then?’ she said.

‘No, unless love can make us so.’

‘Not blood-relatives?’

‘No.’

‘Is he not very . . . extreme?’

‘He is very sincere.’

‘I presume you are a politician?’

Miss Denham smiled.  ‘Could you pardon me, madam, if I said that I was?’ The counter-question was a fair retort enfolding a gentler irony.  Rosamund felt that she had to do with wits as well as with vivid feminine intuitions in the person of this Miss Denham.