disguise the wealth of red-bronze hair. Tall and well-rounded, vigorous
and young, not yet twenty, adored by many suitors, the Lady Catharine
Knollys had rarely looked better than she did this morning as she drove
out to Sadler's, for Providence alone knew what fault of a superb vital
energy. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and every gesture betokened
rather the grand young creature that she was than the valetudinarian
going forth for healing. Her cheek, turned now and again, showed a
clear-cut and untouched soundness that meant naught but health. It
showed also the one blemish upon a beauty which was toasted in the court
as faultless. Upon the left cheek there was a _mouche_, excessive in its
size. Strangers might have commented on it. Really it covered a
deep-stained birth-mark, the one blur upon a peerless beauty. Yet even
this might be forgotten, as it was now.

The companion of the Lady Catharine in her coach was a young woman,
scarce so tall and more slender. The heavy hoop concealed much of the
grace of figure which was her portion, but the poise of the upper body,
free from the seat-back and erect with youthful strength as yet
unspared, showed easily that here, too, was but an indifferent subject
for Sadler's. Dark, where her companion was fair, and with the glossy
texture of her own somber locks showing in the individual roll which ran
back into the absurd _fontange_ of false hair and falser powder, Mary
Connynge made good foil for her bosom friend; though honesty must admit
that neither had yet much concern for foils, since both had their full
meed of gallants. Much seen together, they were commonly known, as the
Morning and Eve, sometimes as Aurora and Eve. Never did daughter of the
original Eve have deeper feminine guile than Mary Connynge. Soft of
speech--as her friend, the Lady Catharine, was impulsive,--slow, suave,
amber-eyed and innocent of visage, this young English woman, with no
dower save that of beauty and of wit, had not failed of a sensation at