y Kew, and to conduct her ladyship to her chariot. Miss Ethel
chose to be displeased at her cousin's displeasure. What were balls made
for but that people should dance? She a flirt? She displease Lord Kew?
If she chose to dance, she would dance; she had no idea of his giving
himself airs; besides it was such fun taking away the gentlemen of Mary
Queen of Scots' court from her; such capital fun! So she went to bed,
singing and performing wonderful roulades as she lighted her candle and
retired to her room. She had had such a jolly evening!! such famous fun,
and, I dare say (but how shall a novelist penetrate these mysteries?),
when her chamber door was closed, she scolded her maid and was as cross
as two sticks. You see there come moments of sorrow after the most
brilliant victories; and you conquer and rout the enemy utterly, and
then regret that you fought.

CHAPTER XXXIV. The End of the Congress of Baden

Mention has been made of an elderly young person from Ireland, engaged
by Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry, as companion and teacher of English for
her little daughter. When Miss O'Grady, as she did some time afterwards,
quitted Madame d'Ivry's family, she spoke with great freedom regarding
the behaviour of that duchess, and recounted horrors which she, the
latter, had committed. A number of the most terrific anecdotes issued
from the lips of the indignant Miss, whose volubility Lord Kew was
obliged to check, not choosing that his countess, with whom he was
paying a bridal visit to Paris, should hear such dreadful legends. It
was there that Miss O'Grady, finding herself in misfortune, and reading
of Lord Kew's arrival at the Hotel Bristol, waited upon his lordship
and the Countess of Kew, begging them to take tickets in a raffle for
an invaluable ivory writing-desk, sole relic of her former prosperity,
which she proposed to give her friends the chance of acquiring: in fact,
Miss O'Grady lived for some years on the produce of repeated raffles for
this beautiful desk: many religious ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain
taking an interest in her misfortunes, and alleviating them by the
simple lottery system. Protestants as well as Catholics were permitted
to take shares in Miss O'Grady's raffles; and Lord Kew, good-natured
then as always, purchased so many tickets, that the contrite O'Grady
informed him of a transaction which had nearly affected his happiness,
and in which she took a not very creditable share. "Had I kno