t level glances and expressed for the poor
Countess as little contempt as admiration. In reality Isabel would as
soon have thought of despising her as of passing a moral judgement on a
grasshopper. She was not indifferent to her husband's sister, however;
she was rather a little afraid of her. She wondered at her; she thought
her very extraordinary. The Countess seemed to her to have no soul; she
was like a bright rare shell, with a polished surface and a remarkably
pink lip, in which something would rattle when you shook it. This rattle
was apparently the Countess's spiritual principle, a little loose nut
that tumbled about inside of her. She was too odd for disdain, too
anomalous for comparisons. Isabel would have invited her again (there
was no question of inviting the Count); but Osmond, after his marriage,
had not scrupled to say frankly that Amy was a fool of the worst
species--a fool whose folly had the irrepressibility of genius. He said
at another time that she had no heart; and he added in a moment that she
had given it all away--in small pieces, like a frosted wedding-cake.
The fact of not having been asked was of course another obstacle to
the Countess's going again to Rome; but at the period with which this
history has now to deal she was in receipt of an invitation to spend
several weeks at Palazzo Roccanera. The proposal had come from Osmond
himself, who wrote to his sister that she must be prepared to be very
quiet. Whether or no she found in this phrase all the meaning he had
put into it I am unable to say; but she accepted the invitation on any
terms. She was curious, moreover; for one of the impressions of her
former visit had been that her brother had found his match. Before the
marriage she had been sorry for Isabel, so sorry as to have had serious
thoughts--if any of the Countess's thoughts were serious--of putting
her on her guard. But she had let that pass, and after a little she was
reassured. Osmond was as lofty as ever, but his wife would not be an
easy victim. The Countess was not very exact at measurements, but it
seemed to her that if Isabel should draw herself up she would be the
taller spirit of the two. What she wanted to learn now was whether
Isabel had drawn herself up; it would give her immense pleasure to see
Osmond overtopped.

Several days before she was to start for Rome a servant brought her the
card of a visitor--a card with the simple superscription "Henrietta C.
Stackpole." Th