Peter Brandon considered it a waste of time. He preferred her full face because of her eyes. Thomasina’s eyes were really quite undeniable. Unusual too, though more so in England than in her native Scotland, where wide grey eyes with black lashes are by no means out of the way. Thomasina’s eyes were of the bright clear grey which has no shade of blue or green. Peter had once remarked that they matched his flannel trousers to a hair. What distinguished them from other grey eyes was the fact that the bright grey of the iris was rimmed with black. Set off by very dark lashes and a skin which glowed with health, they were well worth looking at. Peter looked at them from a superior height and repeated his original remark. “I can’t see why you want to bother about her.” Thomasina had not exactly a Scots accent, but her voice lilted a little. She said,

“I ve told you.”

“Was she the one with the squint, or the one who breathed very loud through her nose? Being frightfully conscientious about it-like this-” He was a personable young man, but all in a moment he managed to produce a pop-eyed stare and a heavy snuffle.

Thomasina repressed a giggle.

“That was Maimie Wilson. And it’s too bad of you, because she couldn’t help it.”

“Then she should have been drowned in infancy. Well, which was this Anna female-what did you say her surname was?

“Ball,” said Thomasina in a depressed voice. “And you’ve seen her quite often.”

He nodded.

“Yes-your school leaving party-flowing cocoa and stacks of girl friends. Anna Ball-I’m getting there…Dark girl with an oily skin and a ‘Nobody loves me-I’ll go into the garden and eat worms’ kind of look.”