"It is so strange. There is never a word about the child in the parcels? No questions? No remarks?"
"No; not one," he replied.
"And what have you done with her all these years?" asked the duchess. "She had high spirits of her own."
"She has been to school, your grace; it was her own wish she should go. She was away for four years without coming home."
"Then she is clever and accomplished?" said the duchess.
"Yes," replied Mark; "she is as clever as any lady in the land."
Then his face grew crimson, and he said to himself that he had made a great blunder. Lady Estelle smiled in her usual languid fashion.
"I mean, your grace," exclaimed Mark, "that she is really very clever. She sings like a mermaid," he added, delighted at his own figure of speech; "she can dance, and speaks two foreign languages."
The duchess laughed. It was impossible to help it; Mark's face was such a study as he enumerated this list of accomplishments.
"I should like to see your protegee, Mr. Brace," said her grace; "but as she is inclined to be vain, it would be wise perhaps not to tell her that I have expressed such a wish."