"If your lordship could only get a five-franc piece of the last French
Republic, 1850, you would know. I dare say the money-changers could get
you one. All the artists of Paris, painters, and sculptors, and
medallists, were competing to produce a face worthy of representing 'La
R publique fran aise;' nobody was satisfied, when Oudine caught a girl
of not seventeen, and, with a literal reproduction of Nature, gained the
prize with unanimity."

"Ah!"

"And, though years have passed, the countenance has not changed; perhaps
improved."

"It is a countenance that will bear, perhaps even would require,
maturity," said Lothair; "but she is no longer 'La R publique
fran aise;' what is she now?"

"She is called Theodora, though married, I believe, to an Englishman, a
friend of Garibaldi. Her birth unknown; some say an Italian, some a
Pole; all sorts of stories. But she speaks every language, is
ultra-cosmopolitan, and has invented a new religion."

"A new religion!"

"Would your lordship care to be introduced to her? I know her enough for
that. Shall we go up to her?"

"I have made so many now acquaintances to-day," said, Lothair, as it
were starting from a reverie, "and indeed heard so many new things, that