Her black hair was brushed straight back from her forehead but drooped a little over her ears.

She seemed to bring with her a larger share of girlishness than any of them had previously observed in her, as though she had made up her mind for this one evening to cast herself adrift from the graver cares of life and to indulge in the frivolities which after all were the heritage of her youth.

She sat at Nigel's right hand and plied him with questions as to the lighter side of his life,--his favourite sport, books, and general occupation.

She gave evidences of humour which delighted everybody, and Nigel, though he would at times have welcomed, and did his best to initiate, an incursion into more serious subjects, found himself compelled to admire the tact with which she continually foiled him.
"It is a mistake," she declared once, "to believe that a woman is ever serious unless she is forced to be.

All our natural proclivities are towards gaiety.