Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/75

Rh that looked like a gentleman who wouldn't be nice to everybody—let alone to a person he would be so sure to find so nice. Mrs. Farange, in the geniality of new-found happiness, had enclosed a "cabinet" photograph of Sir Claude, and Maisie lost herself in admiration of the fair, smooth face, the regular features, the kind eyes, the amiable air, the general glossiness and smartness of her prospective step-father—only vaguely puzzled to think that she should now have two fathers at once. Her researches had hitherto indicated that to incur a second parent of the same sex you had usually to lose the first. "Isn't he sympathetic?" asked Mrs. Wix, who had clearly, on the strength of his charming portrait, made up her mind that Sir Claude promised her a future. "You can see, I hope," she added with much expression, "that he's a perfect gentleman!" Maisie had never before heard the word "sympathetic" applied to anybody's face; it struck her very much, and from that moment it agreeably remained with her. She testified, moreover, to the force of her own perceptions in a long, soft little sigh of response to the pleasant eyes that seemed to seek her acquaintance, to