doing the very uttermost with those advantages which she
possessed. Her own birth had not been high, and that of her husband,
we may perhaps say, had been very low. He had been old when she had
married him, and she had had little power of making any progress till
he had left her a widow. Then she found herself possessed of money,
certainly; of wit,--as she believed; and of a something in her
personal appearance which, as she plainly told herself, she might
perhaps palm off upon the world as beauty. She was a woman who did
not flatter herself, who did not strongly believe in herself, who
could even bring herself to wonder that men and women in high
position should condescend to notice such a one as her. With all her
ambition, there was a something of genuine humility about her; and
with all the hardness she had learned there was a touch of womanly
softness which would sometimes obtrude itself upon her heart. When
she found a woman really kind to her, she would be very kind in
return. And though she prized wealth, and knew that her money was her
only rock of strength, she could be lavish with it, as though it were
dirt.

But she was highly ambitious, and she played her game with
great skill and great caution. Her doors were not open to all
callers;--were shut even to some who find but few doors closed
against them;--were shut occasionally to those whom she most
specially wished to see within them. She knew how to allure by
denying, and to make the gift rich by delaying it. We are told by the
Latin proverb that he who gives quickly gives twice; but I say that
she who gives quickly seldom gives more than half. When in the early
spring the Duke of Omnium first knocked at Madame Max Goesler's door,
he was informed that she was not at home. The Duke felt very cross as
he handed his card out from his dark green brougham,--on the panel
of which there was no blazon to tell the owner's rank. He was very
cross. She had told him that she was always at home between four and
six on a Thursday. He had condescended to remember the information,
and had acted upon it,--and now she was not at home! She was not at
home, though he had come on a Thursday at the very hour she had named
to him. Any duke would have been cross, but the Duke of Omnium was
particularly cross. No;--he certainly would give himself no further
trouble by going to the cottage in Park Lane. And yet Madame Max
Goesler had been in her own drawing-room, while the Duke was