ment which the evening was offering the elite of
Washington, and in due time arrived at the entrance of her hotel.
She found the private entrance to-night occupied by the usual
throng, but hurried from the carriage step across the pavement and
through the open door.

She made no ordinary picture now as she approached the brighter
lights of the interior. Her garb, cut in that fashion which gave
so scant aid to nature's outlines, was widely though not extremely
hooped, the fabric of daintily flowered silk. As she pushed back
the deep, double fronted dolman which served her for a wrap, her
shoulders showed white and beautiful, as also the round column of
her neck, shadowed only by one long drooping curl, and banded by a
gleaming circlet of many colored gems. Her dark hair, though drawn
low upon the temples in acknowledgment of the prevailing mode, was
bound in fashion of her own by a gem-clasped, golden fillet, under
which it broke into a riot of lesser curls which swept over ears
and temples. Here and there a gleaming jewel confined some such
truant lock, so that she glittered, half-barbaric, as she walked,
surmounted by a thousand trembling points of light. Ease,
confidence, carelessness seemed spoken alike by the young woman's
half haughty carriage and her rich costuming. Midway in the
twenties of her years, she was just above slightness, just above
medium height. The roundness of shoulder and arm, thus revealed,
bespoke soundness and wholesomeness beyond callowness, yet with no
hint of years or bulk. Her hair certainly was dark and luxuriant,
her eyes surely were large and dark, without doubt shaded by long
and level brows. The nose was not too highly arched any more than
it was pinched and meager--indeed, a triumph in noses, since not
too strong, nor yet indicating a physique weak and ill nourished.

Vital, self-confident, a trifle foreign, certainly distinguished,
at first there might have seemed a trace of defiance in the
carriage, even in the glance of Josephine St. Auban. But a second
look into the wide dark eyes would have found there rather a trace
of pathos, bordering upon melancholy; and the lines of the mouth,
strongly curved, would in all likelihood have gained that sympathy
demanded by the eyes, betokening a nature warm and noble, not petty
or mean, and certainly not insignificant.

Such was the woman of the hour in Washington, lately frowned on by
the ladies as too beautiful, talked about by