He smiled.

"When I was a boy I had a Claude glass, but they break very soon; or
rather, as you say, grow dark and dim with the smoke of society. But you
ask me about these people. You know them, do you not, as they are your
uncle's guests?"

She shook her head.

"I have been here but a week or two. For the last two years I have been
vegetating among the fens, with a maiden aunt of poor papa's."

"And did you like the country?"

"Like it!" cried Valerie, "I was buried alive. Everything was so
dreadfully punctual and severe in that house, that I believe the very
cat had forgotten how to purr. Breakfast at eight, drive at two, dinner
at five, prayers at ten. Can't you fancy the dreary diurnal round, with
a pursy old rector or two, and three or four high-dried county
princesses as callers once a quarter? Luckily, I can amuse myself, but
oh, you cannot think how I sickened of the monotony, how I longed to
_live!_ At last, I grew so naughty, I was expelled."

"May I inquire your sins?" asked Falkenstein, really amused for once.

She laughed at the remembrance.

"I read 'Notre-Dame' against orders, and I rode the fat old mare round
the paddock without a saddle. I saw no harm in it; as a child, I read
and rode everything I came near, but the rough-riding was condemned as
unfeminine, and any French book, were it even the 'Genie du
Christianisme,' or the 'Petit Careme,' would be regarded by Aunt Agatha,
who doesn't know a word of the language, as a powder magazine of
immorality and infidelity."

"C'est la profonde ignorance qui inspire le ton dogmatique," laughed
Falkenstein. "But surely you have been accustomed to society."

"No, never; but I am made for it, I fancy," said Valerie, with an
unconscious compliment to herself. "When I was with the dear old Tenth,
I used to enjoy myself, but I was a child then. The officers were very
kind to me--gentlemen always are much more so than ladies"--("Pour
cause," thought Waldemar, as she went on)--"but ever since then I have
vegetated as I tell you, in much the same still life as the anemones in
my vase."

"Yet you could write those proverbs," said he, involuntarily.

She laughed, and colored.

"Oh, I have written ever since I could make A B C, and I have not
forgotten all I saw with the old Tenth. But come, tell me more of these
people; I like to hear your satire."

"I am glad you do," said Falkenstein, with a smile; "for only those who
have no foibles to hit have a