her. She has seen
her brother pointed out unmistakeably as the tailor-fellow. There is yet
time to cast him off or fly with him. Is it her extraordinary heroism
impelling her onward, or infatuated rashness? or is it her mere animal
love of conflict?

The Countess de Saldar, like other adventurers, has her star. They who
possess nothing on earth, have a right to claim a portion of the heavens.
In resolute hands, much may be done with a star. As it has empires in its
gift, so may it have heiresses. The Countess's star had not blinked
balefully at her. That was one reason why she went straight on to
Beckley.

Again: the Countess was a born general. With her star above, with certain
advantages secured, with battalions of lies disciplined and zealous, and
with one clear prize in view, besides other undeveloped benefits dimly
shadowing forth, the Countess threw herself headlong into the enemy's
country.

But, that you may not think too highly of this lady, I must add that the
trivial reason was the exciting cause--as in many great enterprises. This
was nothing more than the simple desire to be located, if but for a day
or two, on the footing of her present rank, in the English country-house
of an offshoot of our aristocracy. She who had moved in the first society
of a foreign capital--who had married a Count, a minister of his
sovereign, had enjoyed delicious high-bred badinage with refulgent
ambassadors, could boast the friendship of duchesses, and had been the
amiable receptacle of their pardonable follies; she who, moreover,
heartily despised things English:--this lady experienced thrills of proud
pleasure at the prospect of being welcomed at a third-rate English
mansion. But then, that mansion was Beckley Court. We return to our first
ambitions, as to our first loves not that they are dearer to us,--quit
that delusion: our ripened loves and mature ambitions are probably
closest to our hearts, as they deserve to be--but we return to them
because our youth has a hold on us which it asserts whenever a
disappointment knocks us down. Our old loves (with the bad natures I know
in them) are always lurking to avenge themselves on the new by tempting
us to a little retrograde infidelity. A schoolgirl in Fallow field, the
tailor's daughter, had sighed for the bliss of Beckley Court. Beckley
Court was her Elysium ere the ardent feminine brain conceived a loftier
summit. Fallen from that attained eminence, she sighed anew for Bec