furniture. There were a number of ladies and gentlemen standing talking
and laughing loudly together. The men outnumbered the women, and most of
them stood in a circle about Mistress Clorinda, who sat upright in a
great flowered chair, smiling with her mocking, stately air, as if she
defied them to dare to speak what they felt.

Anne came in like a mouse. Nobody saw her. She did not, indeed, know
what to do. She dared not remain standing all alone, so she crept to the
place where her sister's chair was, and stood a little behind its high
back. Her heart beat within her breast till it was like to choke her.

They were only country gentlemen who made the circle, but to her they
seemed dashing gallants. That some of them had red noses as well as
cheeks, and that their voices were big and their gallantries boisterous,
was no drawback to their manly charms, she having seen no other finer
gentlemen. They were specimens of the great conquering creature Man,
whom all women must aspire to please if they have the fortunate power;
and each and all of them were plainly trying to please Clorinda, and not
she them.

And so Anne gazed at them with admiring awe, waiting until there should
come a pause in which she might presume to call her sister's attention to
her presence; but suddenly, before she had indeed made up her mind how
she might best announce herself, there spoke behind her a voice of
silver.

"It is only goddesses," said the voice, "who waft about them as they move
the musk of the rose-gardens of Araby. When you come to reign over us in
town, Madam, there will be no perfume in the mode but that of
rose-leaves, and in all drawing-rooms we shall breathe but their