y nodded. And Seymour
remarked, 'Fifty guineas knocked off her value!' One added, 'Nothing
worse, I should think'; and another, 'A little damage inside, perhaps.'
Difficult to say whether they spoke of Evan or the brute.

No violent outcries; no reproaches cast on the cold-blooded coquette; no
exclamations on the heroism of her brother! They could absolutely spare
a thought for the animal! And Evan had risked his life for this, and
might die unpitied. The Countess diversified her grief with a deadly
bitterness against the heartless Jocelyns.

Oh, if Evan dies! will it punish Rose sufficiently?

Andrew expressed emotion, but not of a kind the Countess liked a
relative to be seen exhibiting; for in emotion worthy Andrew betrayed to
her his origin offensively.

'Go away and puke, if you must,' she said, clipping poor Andrew's word
about his 'dear boy.' She could not help speaking in that way--he was so
vulgar. A word of sympathy from Lady Jocelyn might have saved her from
the sourness into which her many conflicting passions were resolving;
and might also have saved her ladyship from the rancour she had sown
in the daughter of the great Mel by her selection of epithets to
characterize him.

Will it punish Rose at all, if Evan dies?

Rose saw that she was looked at. How could the Countess tell that Rose
envied her the joy of holding Evan in the carriage there? Rose, to judge
by her face, was as calm as glass. Not so well seen through, however.
Mrs. Evremonde rode beside her, whose fingers she caught, and twined her
own with them tightly once for a fleeting instant. Mrs. Evremonde wanted
no further confession of her state.

Then Rose said to her mother, 'Mama, may I ride to have the doctor
ready?'

Ordinarily, Rose would have clapped heel to horse the moment the thought
came. She waited for the permission, and flew off at a gallop, waving
back Laxley, who was for joining her.

'Franks will be a little rusty about the mare,' the Countess heard Lady
Jocelyn say; and Harry just then stooped his head to the carriage, and
said, in his blunt fashion, 'After all, it won't show much.'

'We are not cattle!' exclaimed the frenzied Countess, within her bosom.
Alas! it was almost a democratic outcry they made her guilty of; but she
was driven past patience. And as a further provocation, Evan would open
his eyes. She laid her handkerchief over them with loving delicacy,
remembering in a flash that her own face had been all th