'But I acknowledge that Evan is no worse than the rest of you,' she
repeated. 'If he understood at all the management of his eyes and mouth!
But that's what he cannot possibly learn in England--not possibly! As
for your poor husband, Harriet! one really has to remember his excellent
qualities to forgive him, poor man! And that stiff bandbox of a man of
yours, Caroline!' addressing the wife of the Marine, 'he looks as if he
were all angles and sections, and were taken to pieces every night and
put together in the morning. He may be a good soldier--good anything you
will--but, Diacho! to be married to that! He is not civilized. None of
you English are. You have no place in the drawing-room. You are like so
many intrusive oxen--absolutely! One of your men trod on my toe the
other night, and what do you think the creature did? Jerks back, then
the half of him forward--I thought he was going to break in two--then
grins, and grunts, "Oh! 'm sure, beg pardon, 'm sure!" I don't know
whether he didn't say, MARM!'

The Countess lifted her hands, and fell away in laughing horror. When
her humour, or her feelings generally, were a little excited, she spoke
her vernacular as her sisters did, but immediately subsided into the
deliberate delicately-syllabled drawl.

'Now that happened to me once at one of our great Balls,' she pursued.
'I had on one side of me the Duchesse Eugenia de Formosa de Fontandigua;
on the other sat the Countess de Pel, a widow. And we were talking of
the ices that evening. Eugenia, you must know, my dears, was in love
with the Count Belmarana. I was her sole confidante. The Countess de
Pel--a horrible creature! Oh! she was the Duchess's determined enemy-
would have stabbed her for Belmarana, one of the most beautiful men!
Adored by every woman! So we talked ices, Eugenic and myself, quite
comfortably, and that horrible De Pel had no idea in life! Eugenia had