curable complaint, which she kept hidden
from all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a
mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which
she had hitherto kept locked.

"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.
Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous
spectacle.

"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die
as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to
me that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda
promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she
wished.

Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe
that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was
mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the
general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and
reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well
able to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour;
accordingly he was dressed by Marriott, and made his _entree_ with very
composed assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de
Pomenars to the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He
managed his part well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady
Delacour dexterously let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling
the French lady to admire _la belle chevelure,_ artfully let fall her
comb.

Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,
and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a
lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she
was glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his
pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested
about the person to whom it belonged.

During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to
make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a
pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had
secretly set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little
delicacy, and relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece,
addressing her with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace
had been cheaply made.

The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her
being brought home by Clarence, Lo