leanse him, so that it did not much matter his being
unclean for the present.

The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a
widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry
Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his
much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had
served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his
lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically
admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's
burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a
giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however,
decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always
said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know
how very candid I am," she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was
wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she
was laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous
resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do
more for us than a dark disguise.

Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian
climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden
and white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned
streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall,
of a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman,
and a most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which
is, let me impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours
with a sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off
her shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and
ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon
rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at
your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen.

Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of
which no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully
one of the other. It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but
when lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes
are indeed unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled. Now Margaret said of
Edward: "He is sure to rise; he has such good principles." Edward said
of Margaret: "She only wants a husband