with a portentous blank, crossed with a row of stars."

"Well, but poor Clorinda?" I objected, as Niedermeyer paused.

"Sophronia, my dear fellow, is simply Clorinda renamed by the baptism of
fire. The fair author came back, of course, and found Clorinda tumbled
upon the floor, a good deal scorched, but, on the whole, more frightened
than hurt. She picks her up, brushes her off, and sends her to the
printer. Wherever the flames had burnt a hole she swings a
constellation! But if the major is prepared to drop a penitent tear over
the ashes of Clorinda, I shall not whisper to him that the urn is empty."

Even Adelina Patti's singing, for the next half-hour, but half availed to
divert me from my quickened curiosity to behold Madame Blumenthal face to
face. As soon as the curtain had fallen again I repaired to her box and
was ushered in by Pickering with zealous hospitality. His glowing smile
seemed to say to me, "Ay, look for yourself, and adore!" Nothing could
have been more gracious than the lady's greeting, and I found, somewhat
to my surprise, that her prettiness lost nothing on a nearer view. Her
eyes indeed were the finest I have ever seen--the softest, the deepest,
the most intensely responsive. In spite of something faded and jaded in
her physiognomy, her movements, her smile, and the tone of her voice,
especially when she laughed, had an almost girlish frankness and
spontaneity. She looked at you very hard with her radiant gray eyes, and
she indulged while she talked in a superabundance of restless, rather
affected little gestures, as if to make you take her meaning in a certain
very particular and superfine sense. I wondered whether after a while
this might not fatigue one's attention; then meeting her charming eyes, I
said, Not for a long time. She was very clever, and, as Pickering had
said, she spoke English admirably. I told her, as I took my seat beside