from a bouquet
on my arm aroused me, and a very silvery voice, in accents every one of
which sank into my heart, bade me welcome to Vienna. It was Lady Blanche
Newington that spoke--the most lovely creature that ever beauty and
station combined to form. Fascinations like hers were new to me: she
mingled gentleness of manner with a spiritual liveliness, that seemed
ever ready to say the right thing at the right moment. The ease with
which, in different languages, she addressed the various individuals
of the company, employing all the little delicate forms of those
conventionalities French and Italian so abound in, and through all, an
unobtrusive solicitude to please, that was most captivating.

My whole occupation that night was to steal after her unobserved, and
gaze with delight at traits of manner that my ardent imagination had
already elevated into graces of mind. I was very much in love--so much
so that, ere a few weeks went over, iny brother attaches saw it, and
tormented me unceasingly on the subject. Nay, they went further: they
actually told Lady Blanche herself, so that I dreaded to meet her, not
knowing how she might treat my presumption. I fancied all manner of
changes in her bearing towards me--reserve, coldness, perhaps disdain.
Nothing of the kind! She was only more familiar and cordial than ever.
Had I known more of the world, or of the feminine part of it, I should
have read this differently: as it was, it overwhelmed me with delight.
There was a frankness in her tone towards me, too; for, now, she
discussed the temper and character of our mutual acquaintances, and with
a shrewdness of criticism strange in one so young. At last we came
to talk of a certain Count de Favancourt, the secretary of the French
embassy; and as I mentioned his name she said, somewhat abruptly,

"I half suspect you don't like the Count?"

"Who could?" replied I, eagerly; "is he not a '_Fat?_'"--using that
precious monosyllable by which his countrymen designate a certain class
of pretenders.

She laughed, and I went on, not sorry to have an opportunity of
severity on one for whom I had conceived an especial hatred--indeed,
not altogether without cause, since he had, on more than one occasion,
marked the difference of our official rank in a manner sufficiently
pointed to be offensive;

and yet, the rigid etiquette observable to another embassy forbade all
notice of whatever could be passed over.

Like a very young man, I did