"But you do," said Miss Duncan; "you've got all sorts of possibilities in your face—you look as if you might have lived for ages."
"As old as that?" exclaimed Cynthia, really startled.
"Perhaps I don't express myself very well" said the other, hastily; "I wish you could see what I've written about you already. I can do it so much better with pen and ink. I've started quite a romance already."
"What is it?" asked Cynthia, not without interest.
"Sit down on the sofa and I'll tell you," said Miss Duncan; "I've done it all from your face, too. I've made you a very poor girl brought up by peasants, only you are really of a great family, although nobody knows it. A rich duke sees you one day when he is hunting and falls in love with you, and you have to stand a lot of suffering and persecution because of it, and say nothing. I believe you could do that," added Janet, looking critically at Cynthia's face.
"I suppose I could if I had to," said Cynthia, "but I shouldn't like it."
"Oh, it would do you good," said Janet; "it would ennoble your character. Not that it needs it," she added hastily. "And I could write another story about that quaint old man who paid the musicians to go away, and who made us all laugh so much."
Cynthia's eye kindled.
"Mr. Bass isn't a quaint old man," she said; "he's the greatest man in the state."
Miss Duncan's patronage had been of an unconscious kind. She knew that she had offended, but did not quite realize how.