ly glanced at the reflection of her beautiful arm in the
glass, and sighed, pushing back the hair from her temples.

'But, for mercy's sake!' resumed the Countess, in alarm at the sigh, 'do
not be too--too touched. Do, pray, preserve your wits. You weep!
Caroline, Caroline! O my goodness; it is just five-and-twenty minutes to
the first dinner-bell, and you are crying! For God's sake, think of your
face! Are you going to be a Gorgon? And you show the marks twice as long
as any other, you fair women. Squinnying like this! Caroline, for your
Louisa's sake, do not!'

Hissing which, half angrily and half with entreaty, the Countess dropped
on her knees. Caroline's fit of tears subsided. The eldest of the
sisters, she was the kindest, the fairest, the weakest.

'Not,' said the blandishing Countess, when Caroline's face was clearer,
'not that my best of Carrys does not look delicious in her shower. Cry,
with your hair down, and you would subdue any male creature on two legs.
And that reminds me of that most audacious Marquis de Remilla. He saw a
dirty drab of a fruit-girl crying in Lisbon streets one day, as he was
riding in the carriage of the Duchesse de Col da Rosta, and her husband
and duena, and he had a letter for her--the Duchesse. They loved! How
deliver the letter? "Save me!" he cried to the Duchesse, catching her
hand, and pressing his heart, as if very sick. The Duchesse felt the
paper--turned her hand over on her knee, and he withdrew his. What does
my Carry think was the excuse he tendered the Duke? This--and this gives
you some idea of the wonderful audacity of those dear Portuguese--that
he--he must precipitate himself and marry any woman he saw weep, and be
her slave for the term of his natural life, unless another woman's hand
at the same moment restrained him! There!' and the Countess's eyes shone
brightly.

'How excessively imbecile!' Caroline remarked, hitherto a passive
listener to these Lusitanian contes.

It was the first sign she had yet given of her late intercourse with a
positive Duke, and the Countess felt it, and drew back. No more anecdotes
for Caroline, to whom she quietly said:

'You are very English, dear!'

'But now, the Duke--his Grace,' she went on, 'how did he inaugurate?'

'I spoke to him of Evan's position. God forgive me!--I said that was the
cause of my looks being sad.'

'You could have thought of nothing better,' interposed the Countess.
'Yes?'

'He said, if he might clear