"The Apostles' Creed?"
"Yes."
She said it like a child.
"Now for St. Athanasius's. That's the test!"
"Let me gather up my flowers. Here is Tartar coming; he will tread upon them."
Tartar was a rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between mastiff and bulldog, who at this moment entered through the glass door, and posting directly to the rug, snuffed the fresh flowers scattered there. He seemed to scorn them as food; but probably thinking their velvety petals might be convenient as litter, he was turning round preparatory to depositing his tawny bulk upon them, when Miss Helstone and Miss Keeldar simultaneously stooped to the rescue.
"Thank you," said the heiress, as she again held out her little apron for Caroline to heap the blossoms into it. "Is this your daughter, Mr. Helstone?" she asked.
"My niece Caroline."
Miss Keeldar shook hands with her, and then looked at her. Caroline also looked at her hostess.
Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been blessed)—Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress. She was agreeable to the eye. Her height and shape were not unlike Miss Helstone's; perhaps in stature she might have the advantage by an inch or two. She was gracefully made, and her face, too, possessed a charm as well described by the word grace as any other. It was pale naturally, but intelligent, and of varied expression. She was not a blonde, like Caroline. Clear and dark were the characteristics of her aspect as to colour. Her face and brow were clear, her eyes of the darkest gray (no green lights in them—transparent, pure, neutral gray), and her hair of the darkest brown. Her features were distinguished—by which I do not mean that they were high, bony, and Roman, being indeed rather small and slightly marked than otherwise, but only that they were, to use a few French words, "fins, gracieux, spirituels"—mobile they were and speaking; but their changes were not to be understood nor their language interpreted all at once. She examined Caroline seriously, inclining her head a little to one side, with a thoughtful air.