eclipsed by the expression of a sadness immense,
mysterious, infinite; this is followed by a look of angelic candor
and sweetness and gentle heroism, that moves you strangely, even to
the heart, and makes appeal to all your warmest and deepest
sympathies--the look of a very masculine Joan of Arc! You don't know
why, but you feel you would make any sacrifice for a man who looks
at you like that, follow him to the death--lead a forlorn hope at
his bidding.

"He does not exact from me anything so arduous as this, but passing
round my neck his powerful arm, he says:

"'Come and drink some tea; I should like to present you to my wife.'

"And he leads me through another corridor to a charming drawing-room
that gives on to the green lawn of the garden.

"There are several people there taking the tea.

"He presents me first to Madame Josselin. If the husband is
enormously handsome, the wife is a beauty absolutely divine; she,
also, is very tall--tres elegante; she has soft wavy black hair, and
eyes and eyebrows d'un noir de jais, and a complexion d'une
blancheur de lis, with just a point of carmine in the cheeks. She
does not say much--she speaks French with difficulty; but she
expresses with her smiling eyes so cordial and sincere a welcome
that one feels glad to be in the same room with her, one feels it is
a happy privilege, it does one good--one ceases to feel one may
possibly be an intruder--one almost feels one is wanted there.

"I am then presented to three or four other ladies; and it would
seem that the greatest beauties of London have given each other
rendezvous in Madame Josselin's salon--this London, where are to be
found the most beautiful women in the world and the ugliest.

"First, I salute the Countess of Ironsides--ah, mon Dieu, la Diane
chasseresse--la Sapho de Pradier! Then Madame Cornelys, the wife of
the great sculptor, who lives next door--a daughter of the ancient
gods of Greece! Then a magnificent blonde, an old friend of theirs,
who speaks French absolutely like a Frenchwoman, and says thee and
thou to M. Josselin, and introduces me to her brother, un vrai type
de colosse bon enfant, d'une tenue irreprochable [thank you, M.
Paroly], who also speaks the French of France, for he was at school
there--a school-fellow of our host.

"There are two or thre