Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/50

38 vently. "I hope he has no intention of repeating it."

"I can't say," replied Letty, slyly, and examining her cousin with much approval. He had the delicious, fresh, manly beauty of the Briton, and he had quite lost that uncanny likeness to a dead man which had been so remarkable ten years ago. He had, however, the British simplicity which takes all of an American girl's subtilities in perfect candor and good faith. He and Letty got along wonderfully together. In fact, Letty's fluency and affability was such that she could have got on with an ogre. But presently Farebrother came up and carried her off, under Sir Archy's very nose, toward the dining-room. As Letty walked across the beautiful hall into the dining-room beyond, some new sense of luxury seemed to awaken in her. She was familiar enough with certain elegancies of life,—at that very moment she had her great-grandmother's string of pearls around her milky-white throat,—and Corbin Hall contained a store of heirlooms for which the average Newport cottager would have bartered all his modern bric-à-brac. But this nicety of detail in comfort was perfectly new and de-