the semblance of a sword at his side, shoes with silver buckles, and
altogether he might have been a full-grown Comte or Vicomte seen
through a diminishing glass. His sister was in a full-hooped dress,
with tight long waist, and sleeves reaching to her elbows, the under
skirt a pale pink, the upper a deeper rose colour; but stiff as was the
attire, she had managed to give it a slight general air of
disarrangement, to get her cap a little on one side, a stray curl loose
on her forehead, to tear a bit of the dangling lace on her arms, and to
splash her robe with a puddle. He was in air, feature, and complexion
a perfect little dark Frenchman. The contour of her face, still more
its rosy glow, were more in accordance with her surname, and so
especially were the large deep blue eyes with the long dark lashes and
pencilled brows. And there was a lively restless air about her full of
intelligence, as she manoeuvred her brother towards a stone seat,
guarded by a couple of cupids reining in sleepy-looking lions in stone,
where, under the shade of a lime-tree, her little petticoated brother
of two years old was asleep, cradled in the lap of a large, portly,
handsome woman, in a dark dress, a white cap and apron, and dark
crimson cloak, loosely put back, as it was an August day. Native
costumes were then, as now, always worn by French nurses; but this was
not the garb of any province of the kingdom, and was as Irish as the
brogue in which she was conversing with the tall fine young man who
stood at ease beside her. He was in a magnificent green and gold
livery suit, his hair powdered, and fastened in a queue, the whiteness
contrasting with the dark brows, and the eyes and complexion of that
fine Irish type that it is the fashion to call Milesian. He looked
proud of his dress, which was viewed in those days as eminently
becoming, and did in fact display his well-made figure and limbs to
great advantage; but he looked anxiously about, and his first inquiry
on coming on the scene in attendance upon the little boy had been -