“Did you know this young lady, Mrs. Pullen?”
“I did, and at one time I was rather intimate with her, that is, before the Baroness took her up, when she passed almost all her time with them.”
“She is, I suppose, very attractive in person?”
“O! dear no, not at all!” cried Margaret, with a woman’s dull appreciation of the charms of one of her own sex, “she has fine eyes, and what men would, I suppose, call a good figure, but no complexion and an enormous mouth. Not at all pretty, but nice-looking at times,—that is all!”
“Clever?” said Pennell, interrogatively.
“I do not think so! She had just come out of a Convent school and was utterly unused to society. But she has a very good voice and plays well on the mandoline!”
“Ladies are not always the best judges of their own sex,” remarked Anthony, turning to Doctor Phillips, “what do you say, Doctor? Had you an opportunity of appraising Miss Brandt’s beauties and accomplishments for yourself?”
“I would rather say nothing, Mr. Pennell,” replied the Doctor. “The fact is, I knew her parents in the West Indies, and could never believe in anything good coming from such a stock. Whatever the girl may be, she inherits terrible proclivities, added to black blood. She is in point of fact a quadroon, and not fit to marry into any decent English family!”
“O! dear!” exclaimed Mr. Pennell laconically.
“And how do you expect me to help you?” he enquired, after a pause.