'What? You mean that it was all the work of Leonard's beaux yeux?'
Leonard gave a sort of growl, intimating that Aubrey was exciting his displeasure; and Ethel was glad to be at home, and break off the conversation; but in a few minutes Aubrey knocked at her door, and edging himself in, mysteriously said, 'Such fun! So it was your beaux yeux, not Leonard's, that made the conquest!'
'I suppose she was touched with what I said of poor Leonard's circumstances, and the pleasure the creature gave him.'
'That is as prosy as Mary, Ethel. At any rate, the woman told Leonard yours was the most irresistibly attractive countenance she ever saw, short of beauty; and that's not the best of it, for he is absolutely angry.
'No wonder,' laughed Ethel.
'No, but it's about the beauty! He can't conceive a face more beautiful than yours.'
'Except the gargoyle on the church tower,' said Ethel, gaping into as complete a model of that worthy as flesh and blood could perpetrate.
'But he means it,' persisted Aubrey, fixing his eyes critically on his sister's features, but disturbed by the contortions into which she threw them. 'Now don't, don't. I never saw any fellow with a hundredth part of your gift for making faces,' he added, between the unwilling paroxysms of mirth at each fresh grimace; but I want to judge of you; and—oh! that solemn one is worse than all; it is like Julius Caesar, if he had ever been photographed!—but really, when one comes to think about it, you are not so very ugly after all; and are much better looking than Flora, whom we were taught to believe in.'
'Poor Flora! You were no judge in her blooming days, before wear and tear came.'
'And made her like our Scotch grandfather.'