THE PRINCIPAL BOY: AN INTERLUDE
I
Captain Lottingar opened the door of the library and roared up the staircase—
"Lottie!"
Miss Lottie Lottingar came down. She was an exceedingly handsome young person,—what is usually known as "a fine figure of a woman,"—but there was nothing of the squire's daughter about her, as there should be about a youthful châtelaine who comes tripping down the shallow oak stairs of a great Elizabethan country house. There is usually something breezy, healthy, and eminently English about such a girl. Lottie, although her colour was good and her costume countrified enough, smacked of the town. She was undeniably attractive, but in her present surroundings she somehow suggested a bottle of champagne at a school-treat. She would have made an admirable "Principal Boy
