Miss Felice glanced at Miss Maggie and smiled and blushed, and began twisting one of her ringlets over her taper fingers, looking very conscious indeed.
"May I ask if you are any relation to young Mr. Randall, the poet, of New York?" said Mrs. Leonard, pushing up her spectacles and trying to see Georgia through the thick vail which still covered her face.
"Why, mamma, what a question! Of course she's not," said Miss Felice, rather pettishly; "he has no relatives, you know. There's plenty of the name."
Georgia threw back her vail at this moment, and stooped to kiss little Jennie, who came up and held her rosy mouth puckered for that purpose, as if she was quite accustomed to be treated to that sort of small coin.
"Oh, Felice, what a beautiful face!" exclaimed Miss Maggie, in an impulsive whisper.
"Ye-es, she's not bad-looking—for a governess," drawled Miss Felice. "They are generally so frightfully ugly. She's a great deal too pale though, and too solemn looking; it gives me the dismals to look at her; and she's ever so much too tall" (Miss Felice, be it known, was rather on the dumpy pattern than otherwise), "and too slight for her size, and her forehead's too high, and her—"
"Oh, Felice, stop! You'll try to make out she's as ugly as sin directly. Did you ever see such splendid eyes?"
"I don't like black eyes," said Miss Felice, in a dissatisfied tone; "they are too sharp and fiery. They do well enough for men, but I don't approve of them at all for women."
"Dear me, what a pity!" said Miss Maggie, sarcastically; "but you can't call hers fiery—they're dreadfully melancholy, I'm sure. Now ain't they, mamma?"
"What dear?" said Mrs. Leonard, not catching the whispered question.