ose interest was greatly enhanced by the
sight of the odd-looking vehicle.

The late-comer presented her card of invitation to the proper
functionary, and went across the enclosure toward the ladies' salon.

"Ah! there is Zibeline!" cried Madame Desvanneaux, with an affected air.
"Do you know her?" she inquired of the Duchesse de Montgeron.

"Not yet," the Duchess replied. "She did not arrive in Paris until the
end of spring, just at the time I was leaving town for the seashore. But
I know that she says her real name is Mademoiselle de Vermont, and that
she was born in Louisiana, of an old French family that emigrated to the
North, and recently became rich in the fur trade-from which circumstance
Madame de Nointel has wittily named her 'Zibeline.' I know also that
she is an orphan, that she has an enormous fortune, and has successively
refused, I believe, all pretenders who have thus far aspired to her
hand."

"Yes--gamblers, and fortune-hunters, in whose eyes her millions excuse
all her eccentricities."

"Do I understand that she has been presented to you?" asked the Duchess,
surprised.

"Well, yes-by the old Chevalier de Sainte-Foy, one of her so-called
cousins--rather distant, I fancy! But the independent airs of this young
lady, and her absolute lack of any respectable chaperon, have decided me
to break off any relations that might throw discredit on our patriarchal
house," Madame Desvanneaux replied volubly, as ready to cross herself as
if she had been speaking of the devil!

The Duchess could not repress a smile, knowing perfectly that her
interlocutor had been among the first to demand for her son the hand of
Mademoiselle de Vermont!

During this dialogue, the subject of it had had time to cast aside her
fur cloak, to fasten upon her slender, arched feet, clad in dainty,
laced boots, a pair of steel skates, with tangent blades, and without
either grooves or straps, and to dart out upon this miniature sheet of
water with the agility of a person accustomed to skating on the great
lakes of America.

She was a brunette, with crisply waving hair, a small head, well-set,
and deep yet brilliant eyes beneath arched and slightly meeting brows.
Her complexion was pale, and her little aquiline nose showed thin,
dilating nostrils. Her rosy lips, whose corners drooped slightly,
revealed dazzling teeth, and her whole physiognomy expressed an air of
haughty disdain, somewhat softened by her natural elegance.

Her c