s willing to pay
dearly. But now she was not to witness the happiness of those she
loved. Already the hard conditions of her contract were to be imposed.
Banishment first, then Isolation; who could say what after?

Her travelling-companion was scarcely well calculated to smooth down the
difficulties of this conflict in her mind. Madame de Heidendorf was the
very reverse of Lady Hester. Without the slightest pretension to good
looks herself, she assumed to despise everything like beauty in
others, constantly associating its possession with the vanity of weak
intellects; she threw a kind of ridicule over these "poor, pretty
things," as she loved to call them, which actually seemed to make beauty
and folly convertible terms. Political intrigue, or, to speak more
fairly, mischief-making in state affairs, was her great and only
passion. By dint of time, patience, considerable cunning, and a very
keen insight into character, she had succeeded in obtaining the intimacy
of many of the first statesmen of Europe. Many had trusted her with the
conduct of little matters which the dignity of diplomacy could not stoop
to. She had negotiated several little transactions, opened the way to
reconciliations, smoothed the road to briberies, and allayed the petty
qualms of struggling morality, where any other than a feminine influence
would have been coarse and indelicate.

As a good monarchist, she was always well received at the Austrian
Court, and in St. Petersburg was accustomed to be treated with peculiar
honor.

By what amount of compensation, or in what shape administered,
Midchekoff had secured her present services, this true history is unable
to record; but that Kate was eminently fortunate, drawing such a prize
in the lottery of life as to enter the world under _her_ auspices, were
facts that she dwelt upon without ceasing.

Frankness and candor are very charming things. They are the very soul of
true friendship, and the spirit of all affectionate interest; but they
can be made very disagreeable elements of mere acquaintanceship. Such
was Madame de Heidendorf s. She freely told Kate, that of all the great
Midchekoff's unaccountable freaks, his intended marriage with herself
was the very strangest; and that to unite his vast fortune and high
position with mere beauty was something almost incredible. There was a
landgravine of Hohenhockingen, an Archduchess, a _main gauche_ of
the Austrian house itself; there was a granddaughter