"She is my aunt's niece by marriage; Mr. Rutherford was her uncle."
"But if you have always known her, you must know how old she is."
"I have not always known her, and I don't know; I suppose her to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight."
"She is over thirty," said Garda, with decision. "Do you think her handsome?"
"She is considered handsome."
"But do you think her so?"
"That is rather a close question, isn't it?"
"It doesn't seem so to me; people are handsome or not handsome, it's fact—not opinion. And what I wanted to see was whether you had any eye for beauty, that was all. Mrs. Rutherford, for instance, is handsome, Mrs. Carew is not. Manuel is handsome, Adolfo Torres is not."
"And Miss Thorne?"
"She hopes she is, but she isn't sure," replied the girl, laughing; "it isn't 'sure' to be thought so by the four persons about here. And she can't find out from the only stranger she knows, because he hasn't a particle of expression in his face; it's most unfortunate."