ompassion passed from
her countenance, its expression altered; it took the calm, almost the
coldness, of a Greek statue. But with the calm there was a listless
melancholy which Greek sculpture never gives to the Parian stone: stone
cannot convey that melancholy; it is the shadow which needs for its
substance a living, mortal heart.

Crack went the whips: the horses bounded on; the equipage rolled fast
down the street, followed by its satellites. "Well!" said a voice in the
street below, "I never saw Lady Montfort in such beauty. Ah, here comes
my lord!"

Mrs. Crane heard and looked forth again. A dozen or more gentlemen
on horseback rode slowly up the street; which of these was Lord
Montfort?--not difficult to distinguish. As the bystanders lifted their
hats to the cavalcade, the horsemen generally returned their salutation
by simply touching their own: one horseman uncovered wholly. That
one must be the Marquess, the greatest man in those parts, with lands
stretching away on either side that town for miles and miles,--a
territory which in feudal times might have alarmed a king. He,
the civilest, must be the greatest. A man still young, decidedly
good-looking, wonderfully well-dressed, wonderfully well-mounted, the
careless ease of high rank in his air and gesture. To the superficial
gaze, just what the great Lord of Montfort should be. Look again! In
that fair face is there not something that puts you in mind of a
florid period which contains a feeble platitude?--something in its very
prettiness that betrays a weak nature and a sterile mind?

The cavalcade passed away; the vans and the wagons again usurped the
thoroughfare. Arabella Crane left the window, and approached the
little looking-glass over the mantelpiece. She gazed upon her own
face bitterly; she was comparing it with the features of the dazzling
marchioness.

The door was flung open, and Jasper Losely sauntered in, whistling a
French air, and flapping the dust from his boots with his kid glove.

"All right," said he, gayly. "A famous day of it!"

"You have won," said Mrs. Crane, in a tone rather of disappointment than
congratulation.

"Yes. That L100 of Rugge's has been the making of me."

"I only wanted a capital just to start with!" He flung himself into a
chair, opened his pocket-book, and scrutinized its contents. "Guess,"
said he, suddenly, "on whose horse I won these two rouleaux? Lord
Montfort's! Ay, and I saw my lady!"

"So did I see her