s of pure white cambric and lace about
her head and neck. She is as erect in her comely embonpoint as a statue
of Ceres; and her dark face, with its delicate aquiline nose, firm proud
mouth, and small, intense, black eye, is so keen and sarcastic in its
expression that you instinctively substitute a pack of cards for the
chess-men and imagine her telling your fortune. The small brown hand
with which she is lifting her queen is laden with pearls, diamonds, and
turquoises; and a large black veil is very carefully adjusted over the
crown of her cap, and falls in sharp contrast on the white folds
about her neck. It must take a long time to dress that old lady in the
morning! But it seems a law of nature that she should be dressed so: she
is clearly one of those children of royalty who have never doubted their
right divine and never met with any one so absurd as to question it.

"There, Dauphin, tell me what that is!" says this magnificent old lady,
as she deposits her queen very quietly and folds her arms. "I should be
sorry to utter a word disagreeable to your feelings."

"Ah, you witch-mother, you sorceress! How is a Christian man to win a
game off you? I should have sprinkled the board with holy water before
we began. You've not won that game by fair means, now, so don't pretend
it."

"Yes, yes, that's what the beaten have always said of great conquerors.
But see, there's the sunshine falling on the board, to show you more
clearly what a foolish move you made with that pawn. Come, shall I give
you another chance?"

"No, Mother, I shall leave you to your own conscience, now it's clearing
up. We must go and plash up the mud a little, mus'n't we, Juno?" This
was addressed to the brown setter, who had jumped up at the sound of the
voices and laid her nose in an insinuating way on her master's leg. "But
I must go upstairs first and see Anne. I was called away to Tholer's
funeral just when I was going before."

"It's of no use, child; she can't speak to you. Kate says she has one of
her worst headaches this morning."

"Oh, she likes me to go and see her just the same; she's never too ill
to care about that."

If you know how much of human speech is mere purposeless impulse or
habit, you will not wonder when I tell you that this identical objection
had been made, and had received the same kind of answer, many hundred
times in the course of the fifteen years that Mr. Irwine's sister Anne
had been an invalid. Splendid old