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Rh not wholly inaccurate. It was certainly true that these people were not simply natural and merry. They had come there from politeness to Bertha and Van Naghel; but, in reality, one was tired, the other envious. . ..

“Auntie,” said Emilie, who was walking round the room on Van Raven’s arm, “if Paul once gets hold of you, he’ll never let you go. . . .”

She called her youngest uncle by his Christian name. She was really a pretty girl, though Paul did not see any good-looking people there, and, by the side of her, her future husband was such a pale, insignificant person that people wondered why she had accepted him. She was rather thin, but there was something dainty, uncommon and original about her in her cloudy white frock; she had a pair of charming eyes of a strangely-twinkling gold-grey, like an unknown jewel; her hair was reddish, with a glint of gold in it; and there were a few tiny freckles on the clear-white complexion which often goes with that hair. She had a pretty laugh, a soft voice, a coaxing way of being nice and saying pleasant things; and, above all, she possessed an innate distinction and, as she passed, white and gleaming, she had something, one would almost have said, of a very beautiful alabaster ornament, or of a snowy azalea in the sunlight: a luminous fairness, dainty and transparently veined with palest blue. Constance knew that Emilie had a talent, something more than the usual girlish accomplishment, for painting, but that, in her busy life as a young society-girl, she had never