cardel?"

"My certes! But it is like your impudence to know my mind quicker
than I tell it. Yes, since you must know, a marriage is arranged
between them, and I have pledged myself for Margaret's fitting
establishment. There it is all, in two words; and now I am going
for the young lady herself. See that you congratulate her."

Do not imagine that her conditions cost me a second thought, nor
the declaration of her future intentions a pang. My cousin was a
woman, and as such was privileged to change her mind as often as
she chose, and I was still young enough not to be worried by the
thought that some day I might not be the one called upon to step
into her comfortable shoes. As for the Vicomte, he must play for
his own hand. So I awaited with impatience the appearance of my
fair supplanter.

She was much younger than I had supposed, not more than sixteen;
but if I had been mistaken in her age, I had not over-estimated
her beauty. Her hair was really the same rich amber-colour that
had awakened my admiration; her forehead was broad and low; her
eyes between hazel and gray, with clear, well-marked brows; her
nose straight and regular; and her mouth, though not small, was
beautifully shaped, with the least droop at the corners, which made
her expression winsome in the extreme. Her face was a little angular
as yet, but the lines were good, and her slightly pointed chin was
broken by the merest shadow of a dimple. She was taller than most
women, and if her figure had not rounded out to its full proportion,
her bearing was noble and her carriage graceful.

Difficult as it is for me to give even this cold inventory of her
charms, the sweet witchery of her manner, the fall of her voice,
the winning grace that shone in her every look, are beyond my poor
powers of description. I felt them to my very heart, which lay in
surrender at her feet long before I realized it was even in danger.

Our friendship began without the usual preliminaries of acquaintance.
My sacrifices in the Prince's cause were known to her through Lady
Jane; indeed, when I saw her noble enthusiasm, it fired me till I
half forgot my disappointments, and was once more so fierce a
Jacobite that I satisfied even her sweeping enthusiasm.

If anything further was needed to heighten our mutual interest, it
was forthcoming in the discovery that I had been aide-de-camp to
Lord George Murray, whom she rightly enough regarded as the mainspring
of the enterprise, an