scious of the effective attitude she
stood in for the space of two full minutes, and even then it required one
of our unhappy sex to recall her. This was Harry Jocelyn.

'My friend,' she said to him, with a melancholy smile, 'my one friend
here!'

Harry went through the form of kissing her hand, which he had been
taught, and practised cunningly as the first step of the ladder.

'I say, you looked so handsome, standing as you did just now,' he
remarked; and she could see how far beneath her that effective attitude
had precipitated the youth.

'Ah!' she sighed, walking on, with the step of majesty in exile.

'What the deuce is the matter with everybody to-day?' cried Harry. 'I 'm
hanged if I can make it out. There's the Carrington, as you call her, I
met her with such a pair of eyes, and old George looking as if he'd been
licked, at her heels; and there's Drummond and his lady fair moping about
the lawn, and my mother positively getting excited--there's a miracle!
and Juley 's sharpening her nails for somebody, and if Ferdinand don't
look out, your brother 'll be walking off with Rosey--that 's my
opinion.'

'Indeed,' said the Countess. 'You really think so?'

'Well, they come it pretty strong together.'

'And what constitutes the "come it strong," Mr. Harry?'

'Hold of hands; you know,' the young gentleman indicated.

'Alas, then! must not we be more discreet?'

'Oh! but it's different. With young people one knows what that means.'

'Deus!' exclaimed the Countess, tossing her head weariedly, and Harry
perceived his slip, and down he went again.

What wonder that a youth in such training should consent to fetch and
carry, to listen and relate, to play the spy and know no more of his
office than that it gave him astonishing thrills of satisfaction, and now
and then a secret sweet reward?

The Countess had sealed Miss Carrington's mouth by one of her most
dexterous strokes. On leaving the dinner-table over-night, and seeing
that Caroline's attack would preclude their instant retreat, the gallant
Countess turned at bay. A word aside to Mr. George Uplift, and then the
Countess took a chair by Miss Carrington. She did all the conversation,
and supplied all the smiles to it, and when a lady has to do that she is
justified in striking, and striking hard, for to abandon the pretence of
sweetness is a gross insult from one woman to another.

The Countess then led circuitously, but with all the ease in the world,