f matrimony led her far away from it. I was sorry to hear her
say this, and felt damped, till I thought that the world was not all
alike.

Then she told me, just as if it were no more than a bargain for a pound
of tallow candles, how Mr. Herbert Castlewood, patient and persistent,
was kept off and on for at least two years by the mother of his sweet
idol. How the old lady held a balance in her mind as to the likelihood
of his succession, trying, through English friends, to find the value
and the course of property. Of what nation she was, Mrs. Price could
not say, and only knew that it must be a bad one. She called herself the
Countess of Ixorism, as truly pronounced in English; and she really was
of good family too, so far as any foreigner can be. And her daughter's
name was Flittamore, not according to the right spelling, perhaps, but
pronounced with the proper accent.

Flittamore herself did not seem to care, according to what Mrs. Price
had been told, but left herself wholly in her mother's hands, being sure
of her beauty still growing upon her, and desiring to have it admired
and praised. And the number of foreigners she always had about her
sometimes made her real lover nearly give her up. But, alas! he was not
quite wise enough for this, with all that he had read and learned and
seen. Therefore, when it was reported from Spain that my father had
been killed by bandits--the truth being that he was then in Greece--the
Countess at last consented to the marriage of her daughter with Herbert
Castlewood, and even seemed to press it forward for some reasons of her
own. And the happy couple set forth upon their travels, and Mrs. Price
was sent abroad to wait upon the lady.

For a few months they seemed to get on very well, Flittamore showing
much affection for her husband, whose age was a trifle more than her own
doubled, while he was entirely wrapped up in her, and labored that the
graces of her mind might be worthy to compare with those more visible.
But her spiritual face and most sweet poetic eyes were vivid with bodily
brilliance alone. She had neither mind enough to learn, nor heart enough
to pretend to learn.

It is out of my power to describe such things, even if it were my duty
to do so, which, happily, it has never been; moreover, Mrs. Price, in
what she told me, exercised a just and strict reserve. Enough that Mr.
Castlewood's wedded life was done with in six months and three days.
Lady Castlewood, as she