ered to promise her a like
reward.

The other matron is not less alone. Her husband and son are dead,
without a tear for either,--to weep was not in Lady Kew's nature. Her
grandson, whom she had loved perhaps more than any human being, is
rebellious and estranged from her; her children, separated from her,
save one whose sickness and bodily infirmity the mother resents as
disgraces to herself. Her darling schemes fail somehow. She moves from
town to town, and ball to ball, and hall to castle, for ever uneasy
and always alone. She sees people scared at her coming; is received by
sufferance and fear rather than by welcome; likes perhaps the terror
which she inspires, and to enter over the breach rather than through the
hospitable gate. She will try and command wherever she goes; and trample
over dependants and society, with a grim consciousness that it dislikes
her, a rage at its cowardice, and an unbending will to domineer. To be
old, proud, lonely, and not have a friend in the world--that is her lot
in it. As the French lady may be said to resemble the bird which the
fables say feeds her young with her blood; this one, if she has a little
natural liking for her brood, goes hunting hither and thither and robs
meat for them; And so, I suppose, to make the simile good, we must
compare the Marquis of Farintosh to a lamb for the nonce, and Miss Ethel
Newcome to a young eaglet. Is it not a rare provision of nature
(or fiction of poets, who have their own natural history) that the
strong-winged bird can soar to the sun and gaze at it, and then come
down from heaven and pounce on a piece of carrion?

After she became acquainted with certain circumstances, Madame de Florac
was very interested about Ethel Newcome, and strove in her modest way to
become intimate with her. Miss Newcome and Lady Kew attended Madame
de Moncontour's Wednesday evenings. "It is as well, my dear, for the
interests of the family that we should be particularly civil to these
people," Lady Kew said; and accordingly she came to the Hotel de
Florac, and was perfectly insolent to Madame la Princesse every Thursday
evening. Towards Madame de Florac, even Lady Kew could not be rude. She
was so gentle as to give no excuse for assault: Lady Kew vouchsafed you
to pronounce that Madame de Florac was "tres grande dame;"--"of the sort
which is almost impossible to find nowadays," Lady Kew said, who thought
she possessed this dignity in her own person. When Madame de