the first time, to see many things clearly. But now she loved. God alone
knew what she felt for this man, and when she thought of him the very
perils of her path were dwarfed. On returning home that night she had
given her maid her cloak, and had stood for a long time immobile,--gazing
at her image in the pierglass.

"Madame est belle comme l'Imperatrice d'Autriche!" said the maid at
length.

"Am I really beautiful, Mathilde?"

Mathilde raised her eyes and hands to heaven in a gesture that admitted
no doubt. Mathilde, moreover, could read a certain kind of history if the
print were large enough.

Honora looked in the glass again. Yes, she was beautiful. He had found
her so, he had told her so. And here was the testimony of her own eyes.
The bloom on the nectarines that came every morning from Mr. Chamberlin's
greenhouse could not compare with the colour of her cheeks; her hair was
like the dusk; her eyes like the blue pools among the rocks, and touched
now by the sun; her neck and arms of the whiteness of sea-foam. It was
meet that she should be thus for him and for the love he brought her.

She turned suddenly to the maid.

"Do you love me, Mathilde?" she asked.

Mathilde was not surprised. She was, on the contrary, profoundly touched.

"How can madame ask?" she cried impulsively, and seized Honora's hand.