the young Countess of Melton go on.--"She
is wickedly beautiful and attractive, and there is something odd about
her, too, and it touches me; and I don't believe she is really wicked a
bit. Her eyes are like storm clouds. I have heard her first husband was
a brute. I can't think who told me but it came from some one at one of
the Embassies."

"We don't know much about her, any of us," Lady Ethelrida said, "but
Aunt Jane asked us all in the beginning to trust Tristram's judgment: he
is awfully proud, you know. And besides, her uncle, Mr. Markrute, is so
nice. But, Anne--" and Lady Ethelrida paused.

"Well, what, dear? Tristram is awfully in love with her, isn't he?" Lady
Anningford asked.

"Yes," said Lady Ethelrida, "but, Anne, do you really think Tristram
looks happy? I thought when he was not speaking his face seemed rather
sad."

"The Crow came down in the train with them," Lady Anningford announced.
"I'll hear the whole exact impression of them after dinner and tell you.
The Crow is always right."

"She is so very attractive, I am sure, to every man who sees her, Anne.
I hope Lord Elterton won't begin and make Tristram jealous. I wish I had
not asked him. And then there is Laura--It was awful taste, I think, her
insisting upon coming, don't you?--Anne, if she seems as if she were
going to be horrid you will help me to protect Zara, won't you?--And now
we really must dress."

* * * * *

In another room Mrs. Harcourt was chatting with her sister and Lady
Highford.

"She is perfectly lovely, Laura," Miss Opie said. "Her hair must reach
down to the ground and looks as if it would not come off, and her skin
isn't even powdered--I examined it, on purpose, in a side light. And
those eyes! Je-hoshaphat! as Jimmy Danvers says."

"Poor, darling Tristram!" Laura sighed sentimentally while she inwardly
registered her intense dislike of "the Opie girl." "He looks melancholy
enough--for a bridegroom; don't you think so, Kate?" and she lowered her
eyes, with a glance of would-be meaning, as though she could say more,
if she wished. "But no wonder, poor dear boy! He loathed the marriage;
it was so fearfully sudden. I suppose the Markrute man had got him in
his power."

"You don't say so!" Mrs. Harcourt gasped. She was a much simpler person
than her sister. "Jimmy assured me that Lord Tancred was violently in
love with her, and that was it."

"Jimmy always was a fool," Lady Highford said