noble deeds, her courage, her ambition, her devotion to duty and her
unflinching sense of honour. Full of rare perceptions and
instinctive knowledge of persons and motives, she could only be
deceived and blinded where her deepest affections were concerned,
and there she could certainly be fooled and duped as completely as
the wisest of us all. Looking at her now as she stood awaiting her
uncle's arrival in the drawing-room of her "suite," the windows of
which faced the Bois, she expressed to the air and surroundings the
personality of a thoughtful, charming young woman,--no more. Her
black silk gown, cut simply in the prevailing mode of definitely
outlining the figure from throat to hips, and then springing out in
pliant folds of trailing drapery, had nothing remarkable about it
save its Parisian perfection of fit,--the pale "Gloire de France"
rose that rested lightly amongst the old lace at her neck, pinned,
yet looking as though it had dropped there merely out of a languid
desire to escape from further growing, was her only ornament. Her
hair, full of curious lights and shades running from brown to gold
and gold to brown again, in a rippling uncertain fashion, clustered
thickly over her brow and was caught back at the sides in a loose
twist after the style of the Greek vestals,--and her fine, small
white hands and taper fingers, so skilled in the use of the artist's
brush, looked too tiny and delicate to be of any service save to
receive the kisses of a lover's lips,--or to be raised, folded pure
and calm, in a child-like appeal to Heaven. Certainly in her fragile
appearance she expressed nothing save indefinable charm--no one,
studying her physiognomy, would have accredited her with genius,
power, and the large conceptions of a Murillo or a Raphael;--yet
within the small head lay a marvellous brain--and the delicate body
was possessed by a spirit of amazing potency to conjure with. While
she watched for the first glimpse of the carriage which was to bring