Events cast their Shadows before Them." I feasted my eyes on the
wondrous little man, who seemed extremely chatty and genial, and quite
unembarrassed by his fame.

A guest was late, and Lord Cray, who seemed somewhat peevishly impatient
for his food, exclaimed--

"Mary wouldn't be Mary if she were punctual!"

Just then Mary came in--and Mary was no less a person than the Duchess
of Towers!

My knees trembled under me; but there was no time to give way to any
such tender weakness. Lord Cray walked away with her; the procession
filed into the dining room, and somewhere at the end of it my young
vicaress and myself.

The duchess sat a long way from me, but I met her glance for a moment,
and fancied I saw again in it that glimmer of kindly recognition.

My neighbor, who was charming, asked me if I did not think the Duchess
of Towers the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

I assented with right good-will, and was told that she was as good as
she was beautiful, and as clever as she was good (as if I did not know
it); that she would give away the very clothes off her back; that there
was no trouble she would not take for others; that she did not get on
well with her husband, who drank, and was altogether bad and vile; that
she had a great sorrow--an only child, an idiot, to whom she was
devoted, and who would some day be the Duke of Towers; that she was