man," said the beautiful creature, standing at her full
great height, and smiling down at this blue and white piece of frailty
with the flashing splendour of her eyes.

"Not quite a woman," cried two wits at once. "A goddess rather--an
Olympian goddess."

The languisher could not endure comparisons which so seemed to disparage
her ethereal charms. She lifted the weapon with a great effort, which
showed the slimness of her delicate fair wrist and the sweet tracery of
blue veins upon it.

"Nay," she said lispingly, "it needs the muscle of a great man to lift
it. I could not hold it--much less beat with it a horse." And to show
how coarse a strength was needed and how far her femininity lacked such
vigour, she dropped it upon the floor--and it rolled beneath the edge of
the divan.

"Now," the thought shot through my lady's brain, as a bolt shoots from
the sky--"now--he _laughs_!"

She had no time to stir--there were upon their knees three beaux at once,
and each would sure have thrust his arm below the seat and rummaged, had
not God saved her! Yes, 'twas of God she thought in that terrible mad
second--God!--and only a mind that is not human could have told why.

For Anne--poor Mistress Anne--white-faced and shaking, was before them
all, and with a strange adroitness stooped,--and thrust her hand below,
and drawing the thing forth, held it up to view.

"'Tis here," she said, "and in sooth, sister, I wonder not at its
falling--its weight is so great."

Clorinda took it from her hand.

"I shall break no more beasts like Devil," she said, "and for quieter
ones it weighs too much; I shall lay it by."

She crossed the room and laid it upon a shelf.

"It was ever heavy--but for Devil. 'Tis done with," she said; and there
came back to her face--which for a second had lost hue--a flood of
crimson so glowing, and a smile so strange, that those who looked and
heard, said to themselves that 'twas the thought of Osmonde who had so
changed her, which made her blush. But a few moments later they beheld
the same glow mount again. A lacquey entered, bearing a salver on which
lay two letters. One was a large one, sealed with a ducal coronet, and
this she saw first, and took in her hand even before the man had time to
speak.

"His Grace's courier has arrived from France," he said; "the package was
ordered to be delivered at once."

"It must be that his Grace returns earlier than we had hoped," she said,
and then the