He took a good look at the young girl on his arm, and he beheld a very charming form, soft brown wavy hair in a glorious luxuriance, tastefully and neatly bound up in plaits, a fair skin slightly freckled, a nose a little tip-tilted like the petal of a flower, a rich red mouth, and earnest gray eyes shaded by long, sweeping lashes.
“Your first visit to London?”
“My first.”
She turned her face to him, and then he perceived its delicate oval, its low, straight forehead, its pencilled brows, its charming innocence and purity of expression. This was not the brogue he expected to hear. This was not the face or form he had so dreaded to meet. Why, he could get on with this charming bit of Emerald without any reference to the Isle, save what it might please her Serene Greenship to indulge in.
“And how do you like London?” he asked, after the gentle fuss of seat-taking had subsided, and every person had opened his or her napkin after his or her own particular fashion.
“It oppresses me.”
“In what way?”
“It is too vast, too grand, too colossal. It wearies. I have had more headache since I came here than ever I earned over my Latin grammar.”
“Latin grammar! Are you so deep as Latin?”
“I have taught Latin,” and, seeing his puzzled expression, “to my very young brothers.”