, in a mixture of
anger and astonishment.

"I'm afraid I could be guilty of so great an enormity," said she,
smiling superciliously.

"It's exactly the word for it, whatever you may think," said he,
doggedly. "All I can say is, that you don't know Georgina, or you'd
never have dreamt of it."

"In that case it is better I _should_ know her; so I'll get my bonnet
and shawl at once."

She was back in the room in a moment, and they set out for the Palazzo
Gondi.

What would not Beecher have given, as they drove along, for courage to
counsel and advise her,--to admonish as to this, and caution as to that?
And yet he did not dare to utter a word, and she was as silent.

It would not be very easy to say exactly what sort of person Lady
Georgina expected in her sister-in-law; indeed, she had pictured her in
so many shapes to herself that there was not an incongruity omitted
in the composition, and she fancied her bold, daring, timid, awkward,
impertinent, and shy alternately, and, in this conflict of anticipation,
it was that Lizzy entered. So utterly overcome was Lady Georgina by
astonishment, that she actually advanced to meet her in some confusion,
and then, taking her hand, led her to a seat on the sofa beside her.

[Illustration: 372]

While the ordinary interchange of commonplaces went on,--and nothing
could be more ordinary or commonplace than the words of their
greeting,--each calmly surveyed the other. What thoughts passed in their
minds, what inferences were drawn, and what conclusions formed in
this moment, it is not for me to guess. To women alone pertains
that marvellous freemasonry that scans character at a glance, and
investigates the sincerity of a disposition and the value of a
lace flounce with the same practised facility. If Lady Georgina was
astonished by the striking beauty of her sister-in-law, she was amazed
still more by her manner and her tone. Where could she have learned that
graceful repose,--that simplicity, which is the very highest art? Where
and how had she caught up that gentle quietude which breathes like a
balmy odor over the well-bred world? How had she acquired that subtlety
by which wit is made to sparkle and never to startle; and what training
had told her how to weave through all she said the flattery of a wish to
please?

Woman of the world as she was, Lady Lackington had seen no such marvel
as this. It was no detraction from its merit that it might be all
acting, for it was