"Are not these rooms beautiful, Miss Broadhurst?" said Lady Catherine,
determined, if possible, to turn the conversation into a commonplace,
safe channel; for she had just felt, what most of Miss Broadhurst's
acquaintance had in their turn felt, that she had an odd way of
startling people, by setting their own secret little motives suddenly
before them.

"Are not these rooms beautiful?"

"Beautiful!--Certainly."

The beauty of the rooms would have answered Lady Catherine's purpose
for some time, had not Lady Anne imprudently brought the conversation
back again to Miss Broadhurst.

"Do you know, Miss Broadhurst," said she, "that if I had fifty sore
throats, I could not have refrained from my diamonds on this GALA
night; and such diamonds as you have! Now, really, I could not believe
you to be the same person we saw blazing at the opera the other
night!"

"Really! could not you, Lady Anne? That is the very thing that
entertains me. I only wish that I could lay aside my fortune
sometimes, as well as my diamonds, and see how few people would know
me then. Might not I, Grace, by the golden rule, which, next to
practice, is the best rule in the world, calculate and answer that
question?"

"I am persuaded," said Lord Colambre, "that Miss Broadhurst has