These were the stiffest of days, just before formality had become
unbearable, and the reaction of simplicity had set in; and Estelle had
undone two desperate knots in the green and yellow silks before the
preliminary compliments were over, and Lady Nithsdale arrived at the
point.

'Madame is about to rejoin Monsieur son Mari.'

'I am about to have that happiness.'

'That is the reason I have been bold enough to derange her.'

'Do not mention it. It is always a delight to see Madame la Comtesse'

'Ah! what will Madame say when she hears that it is to ask a great
favour of her.'

'Madame may reckon on me for whatever she would command.'

'If you can grant it--oh! Madame,' cried the Scottish Countess,
beginning to drop her formality in her eagerness, 'we shall be for ever
beholden to you, and you will make a wounded heart to sing, besides
perhaps saving a noble young spirit.'

'Madame makes me impatient to hear what she would have of me,' said the
French Countess, becoming a little on her guard, as the wife of a
diplomatist, recollecting, too, that peace with George I. might mean
war with the Jacobites.

'I know not whether a young kinsman of my Lord's has ever been