of the winter half paralysed with cold in a wadded basket before the
fire. It snapped with pettish impotence at every one who approached it,
including its mistress, and the house was frequently convulsed because
there was too much salt in its soup or too little sugar in its tea.
Greifenstein's pointers generally regarded it with silent scorn, but
occasionally, when it was being petted with more than usual fondness,
they would sit up before it, thrust out their long tongues and shake
their intelligent heads, with a grin that reached to their ears, and
which was not unlike the derisively laughing grimace of a street-boy.
Greifenstein never took any notice of the little animal, but on the
other hand he was exceedingly careful not to disturb it. He probably
considered it as a sort of familiar spirit attached to his wife's
being. Had he been an ancient Egyptian instead of a modern German, he
would doubtless have performed a weekly sacrifice to it, with the same
stiff but ready outward courtesy, and prompted by the same inward
adherence to the principles of household peace, which so pre-eminently
characterised him.

The Lady of Sigmundskron had neither parasol, nor lap-dog, nor fan. Her
plain grey dress, made almost as simply as a nun's, contrasted oddly
with the profusion of expensive bad taste displayed in her hostess's
attire, as her serious white face and quiet noble eyes were strangely
unlike Frau von Greifenstein's simpering, nervous countenance. The
latter lady would certainly have been taken at first sight for the
younger of the two, though she was in reality considerably older, but a
closer examination showed an infinite number of minute lines, about the
eyes, about the mouth, and even on her cheeks, not to mention that
tell-tale wrinkle, the sign manual of advancing years, which begins
just in front of the lobe of the ear and cuts its way downwards and
backwards, round the angle of the jaw. There was a disquieting air of