Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/19

 that very evening, which he had accepted with dignified effusion. He had taken his Anglophilic hostess down to dinner, and listened with respect and attention to her six-month-stale stories of the sayings and doings of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, and the worshipful members of his especial set. Larkington had found a good deal of amusement during the dinner in his right-hand neighbor. She was a pretty woman of the Venus de Médicis type, which is by no means uncommon among American women.

Mrs. Craig was not beautiful, though he had told her before the dessert that she was; but she was the perfection of prettiness. Small, without being undersized, with charming curves of face and figure, a well-shaped face and head, blond hair, deep-gray eyes, and a mouth which, though well cut, was too narrow and bloodless to betoken a generous or passionate nature. She had received the Englishman's attentions with cordiality and friendliness, and had promised, as he escorted