gesture of the
most earnest untrammeling of mind, and, in full
speed, as in the repose upon a lounge in a saloon,
she carried away the listener with her
uncalculating and passionate absorption--no
self-possession, however on its guard it might be,
able, apparently, to withstand the enveloping and
resistless influence which she herself was a slave
to. Unconsciousness of every thing in the world,
except the feeling she was pouring from her soul,
seemed the only and every-day condition and law of
her nature; and supreme as she was in fashion of
dress, and style of manner, these seemed matters
learned and lost thought of--she having returned to
nature, leaving her triumphs as a belle to be cared
for by infallible habit. A separate spirit of
light, speaking from the lips of the most
accomplished and best perfected of women--the
spirit, and the form possessed, being each in full
exercise of their best faculties--could scarcely
have conveyed more complete impressions of wondrous
mind, in perfect body, or have blended more
ravishingly, the entireness of heavenly with the
most winning earthly development. She was an
earnest angel, in the person of a self-possessed
and unerringly graceful woman.

I chanced to be looking on, when Prince ----, one
of the brothers of a royal family of central
Europe, was presented to the Countess ----. It was
at a crowded ball; and I observed that, after a few
minutes of conversation with her, he suddenly
assumed a ceremonious indifference of manner, and
went into another room. I saw at once that the
slightness of the attention was an "anchor to
windward," and that, in even those few minutes the
prince had recognized a rare gem, and foreseen
that, in the pursuit of it, he might need to be
without any remembered particularity of attention.
Lady ----- conversed with him with her usual
earnest openness, but started a little, once or
twice, at words which were certainly unaccompanied
by their corresponding expression of countenance;
and this, too, I put down for an assumption of
disguise on the part of the prince. It