"Is, as I said, a perfect lady."
"Yes; but why do you hesitate?"
"Well, mother, I don't know how to put it," he laughed lightly, and coloured impatiently at his own blundering stupidity.
"I will help you. That the younger is fifty, wears corkscrew curls, and teaches the piano in that awful Grimsby Street. Never mind, John, I am not afraid of an old maid, even if you are."
"Good heavens! I don't mean that, mother! I'll put it in this way. It is not to say that there is a strong likeness, but, if you saw Miss Grace, you would be prepared to swear it was Miss Ashton."
"What? So like Dora Ashton! Then, indeed, she must be not only ladylike but a beauty as well."
"The two would be, I think, quite indistinguishable to the eye, anyway. The voices are not the same."
"Now, indeed, you do interest me. And was it because of this extraordinary resemblance you sought the young lady's acquaintance?"
"Well, as I said, it is too long a story, much too long a story to tell now. I did not seek the lady's acquaintance. A man who knew us both, and whom I met yesterday by accident, was so struck by the similarity between Miss Ashton and Miss Grace that he insisted upon my going with him to the house of this Mrs. Grace."
"Oh, I understand. You were at Mrs. Ashton's Thursday, met some man there, and he carried you off. Upon my word you seem to be in a whirl of romances," she said gaily.