for I confess I was a little
interested in this disjointed romance of long-past days.

"Did you ever know a thoroughly unfeeling person in your life that did
not prosper?" was her ladyship's reply; and again her features writhed
into the Mephistopheles' sneer. "Lady Mabel married an earl, and had
sons and daughters, and lived to a green old age. I have seen a
picture of her at fifty, and she was still 'fair and comely and buxom'
as when she dazzled the old chaplain's eyes and broke Sir Montague's
heart. Yes, yes, Kate, there's nothing like a _sensible_ woman; she's
the evergreen in the garden, and blooms, and buds, and puts forth
fresh shoots, when the rose is lying withered and trampled into the
earth; but for all that, she has never had the charm of the rose, and
never can have."

Such is a specimen of one of my many conversations with Lady
Scapegrace, whom I liked more and more the better I knew her. But I
have been anticipating sadly during my drive of Sir Guy's coach up Sir
Guy's avenue. When I reached the front door, with all my recklessness,
I felt glad to see no head poking out of windows--above all, no
_female_ witness to my unwomanly conduct. I felt thoroughly ashamed of
myself as I got down from the box; and I confess it was with feelings
of intense relief that a polite groom of the chambers informed me,
with many apologies, "her ladyship and all the ladies had gone to
dress," and handed me over, with a courtly bow, to a tidy elderly
woman, in a cap that could only belong to a housekeeper. She conducted
me to my room, and consigned me to Gertrude, already hard at work
unpacking upon her knees.

CHAPTER XX.

A very pretty little room it was; none of your enormous dreary
state-apartments, dull as a theatre in the daytime, with a bed like a
mourning coach, and corners of gloom and mystery, uncomfortable even
at noon, and fatal to the nerves when seen by the light of a solitary
wax-candle. On the contrary, it was quite the room for a young lady:
pink hangings tinted one's complexion with that roseate bloom which
the poet avers is as indispensable to woman as "man's imperial
front"--whatever _that_ means--is to the male biped. A dark carpet
with a rich border relieved the light-coloured paper, picked out
sparingly with flowers; the toilet-table was covered with a blushing
transparency of pink under white, like sunset on snow--perhaps I
should rather say like a muslin dress over a satin slip; and ther