"And now that you have come, Floyd, you can give me some advice. I was such a young idiot when I ran over Europe, but you have done it leisurely. Did you devote much time to French art? I can't decide which to make a specialty. The French are certainly better teachers, but why, then, do so many go to Rome? It is my dream." And she clasps her hands in a melodramatic manner.
"What have you been doing?" he asks, as she pauses for breath.
"I took up those things first," nodding to some flower pieces. "But every school-girl paints them."
"These are exceedingly well done," he says, examining them closely.
"There is nothing distinctive about them. Who remembers a rose or a bunch of field flowers? Half a dozen women have honorable mention and one cannot be told from the other. But a landscape or a story or a striking portrait,—you really must let me try Cecil," glancing at her with rapture. "Oh, there is an article here in the Art Journal on which you must give me an opinion." And flying up, she begins a confusing search. "It is so good to find a kindred soul——"
A light tap at the door breaks up the call. It is Jane, who with a true English courtesy says,—
"If you please, Mr. Grandon, Miss Laura sent me to say that Mr. Delancy has come."
Floyd has been so amused with Marcia that he goes rather reluctantly, and finds his sister's betrothed in the drawing-room, quite at home with Madame Lepelletier, though possibly a little dazzled. Arthur Delancy is a blond young man of five or six and twenty, well looking, well dressed, and up in all the usages of "the best society." He greets Mr. Grandon with just the right shade of deference as the elder and a sort of guardian to his financé. He pays his respects to Miss Cecil with an air that completely satisfies the little lady, it has the distance about it so congenial to her.
"Floyd," Laura says, with a laugh, "that child is intensely English. She has the 'insular pride' we hear so much about."
"And English hair and complexion," continues Mr. Delancy; while madame adds her graceful little meed.