"I remember!" exclaimed Sir Henry, suddenly enlightened, "a man with a squint——"
"A squint!" returned Helen, indignantly. "Oh, papa! how can you say so? He's got beautiful eyes; at least—I mean——" she added, picking herself up with some confusion, "he hasn't the slightest vestige of a squint! And you thought him good-looking."
"Did you think him good-looking, Nelly?" said her father; "that's more to the purpose."
"I never thought about it," answered the girl, tossing her head, yet smiling a little with her deep expressive eyes. "He seemed gentleman-like and good-natured, and you said you wanted to be civil to him; so he'd better come here, I suppose, and I'll see that his room is comfortable and his fire lit—that's my department. Now, papa, if you mean to be provoking, I'll go and attend to my own business: I've plenty to do, and you're not to have any more tea. What an hour to have just finished breakfast! Shall I ring?"
"Ring away, Nelly," said her father, putting a cigar in his mouth, and sauntering off for his usual visit to the stables.
But Helen dipped into the waste-paper basket, and extracted therefrom the two torn halves of Frank Vanguard's letter, which she pieced together and perused attentively. Then she folded them carefully in their envelope, also torn, and placed the whole in her apron pocket, ere she rang the bell and sailed off on her daily avocations; from all which I infer that, notwithstanding her denial, she had thought about the writer's good looks, and was, at least, perfectly satisfied that his eyes had not the remotest tendency to a squint!
CHAPTER IV.
AMAZONS.
"My dear, the Amazons were quite right." It was Mrs. Lascelles who spoke, sitting in the easiest chair of her boudoir, and listening to an account of those remarkable women, read aloud by Miss Ross. The ladies had not been studying Herodotus, amusing and improbable as are the anecdotes of that gossiping historian, but took their information from an author of later date, less quaint, more voluminous, and perhaps as little to be trusted.