eness. She was rather inclined
to EMBONPOINT, but not more than became her age, of apparently thirty
years. Her step was that of a queen, but it was of Queen Vashti, not
Queen Esther--the bold and commanding, not the retiring beauty.

Father Buonaventure raised himself on the couch, angrily, as if
displeased by this intrusion. 'How now, madam,' he said, with some
sternness; 'why have we the honour of your company?'

'Because it is my pleasure,' answered the lady, composedly.

'Your pleasure, madam!' he repeated in the same angry tone.

'My pleasure, sir,' she continued, 'which always keeps exact pace with
my duty. I had heard you were unwell--let me hope it is only business
which produces this seclusion.'

'I am well,' he replied; 'perfectly well, and I thank you for your
care--but we are not alone, and this young man'--

'That young man?' she said, bending her large and serious eye on
Alan Fairford, as if she had been for the first time aware of his
presence,--'may I ask who he is?'

'Another time, madam; you shall learn his history after he is gone. His
presence renders it impossible for me to explain further.'

'After he is gone may be too late,' said the lady; 'and what is his
presence to me, when your safety is at stake? He is the heretic lawyer
whom those silly fools, the Arthurets, admitted into this house at a
time when they should have let their own father knock at the door in
vain, though the night had been a wild one. You will not surely dismiss
him?'

'Your own impatience can alone make that step perilous,' said the
father; 'I have resolved to take it--do not let your indiscreet
zeal, however excellent its motive, add any unnecessary risk to the
transaction.'

'Even so?' said the lady, in a tone of reproach, yet mingled with
respect and apprehension. 'And thus you will still go forward, like a
stag upon the hunter's snares, with undoubting confidence, after all
that has happened?'

'Peace, madam,' said Father Buonaventure, rising up; 'be silent, or quit
the apartment; my designs do not admit of female criticism.'

To this peremptory command the lady seemed about to make a sharp reply;
but she checked herself, and pressing her lips strongly together, as if
to secure the words from bursting from them which were already formed
upon her tongue, she made a deep reverence, partly as it seemed in
reproach, partly in respect, and left the room as suddenly as she had
entered it.

The father looked di