me, sir," she said, smiling imperiously on the young man and
speaking rapidly. "I have many questions to ask you! You are full of
surprises, Monsieur, and I must have my curiosity satisfied. We have
many arrears of conversation to make up. Did you not promise to tell me
of General Washington, of America, of your young Scotch poet? But, first
of all, I must have a list of your accomplishments," and she laughed
musically. Calvert thought it was like seeing the sun break through the
clouds on a stormy day to see this sudden change to girlish gayety and
naturalness from her grand air of princess royal, and which, after all,
he reflected, she had something of a right to assume. Indeed, she bore
the name of one who had been a most distinguished officer of the King
and who had died in his service, and she was herself the descendant of a
long line of nobles who, if they had not all been benefactors of their
race, had, at least, never shirked the brunt of battle nor any service
in the royal cause. On her father's side she was sprung from that great
warrior, Jacques d'Azay, who fought side by side with Lafayette's
ancestor in the battle of Beauge, when the brother of Harry of England
was defeated and slain. On her mother's side she came of the race of the
wise and powerful Duc de Sully, Henry of Navarre's able minister. One of
her great uncles had been a Grand Almoner of France, and another had
commanded one of the victorious battalions at Fontenoy under the
Marechal Saxe. The portraits of some of these great gentlemen and of
many another of her illustrious ancestors hung upon the walls of the
salons and galleries of this mansion in the rue St. Honore. The very
house bespoke the pride of race and generations of affluence, and was
only equalled in magnificence by the Noailles hotel near by. As Mr.
Calvert looked about him at the splendor of this mansion, which had been
in the d'Azay family for near two centuries and a half; at the spacious
apartment with its shining marquetry floor, its marble columns
separating it from the great entrance hall; at the lofty ceiling,
decorated by the famous Lagrenee with a scene from Virgil ('twas the
meeting of Dido and Aeneas); at the brilliant company gathered
together--as Mr. Calvert looked at all this, he felt a thousand miles
removed from her in circumstance and sentiment, and thought to himself
that it was not strange that she, who had been accustomed to this
splendor since her birth, should