iden, were not among the noticeable charms of the small creature in
gloomy black, shrinking into a corner of the big room. She had very
little colour of any sort to boast of. Her hair was of so light a brown
that it just escaped being flaxen; but it had the negative merit of
not being forced down to her eyebrows, and twisted into the hideous
curly-wig which exhibits a liberal equality of ugliness on the heads
of women in the present day. There was a delicacy of finish in her
features--in the nose and the lips especially--a sensitive changefulness
in the expression of her eyes (too dark in themselves to be quite in
harmony with her light hair), and a subtle yet simple witchery in
her rare smile, which atoned, in some degree at least, for want of
complexion in the face and of flesh in the figure. Men might dispute
her claims to beauty--but no one could deny that she was, in the common
phrase, an interesting person. Grace and refinement; a quickness of
apprehension and a vivacity of movement, suggestive of some foreign
origin; a childish readiness of wonder, in the presence of new
objects--and perhaps, under happier circumstances, a childish
playfulness with persons whom she loved--were all characteristic
attractions of the modest stranger who was in the charge of the ugly old
woman, and who was palpably the object of that wrinkled duenna's devoted
love.

A travelling writing-case stood open on a table near them. In an
interval of silence the girl looked at it reluctantly. They had been
talking of family affairs--and had spoken in Italian, so as to keep
their domestic secrets from the ears of the strangers about them. The
old woman was the first to resume the conversation.

"My Carmina, you really ought to write that letter," she said; "the
illustrious Mrs. Gallilee is waiting to hear of our arrival in London."

Carmina took up the pen, and put it down again with a sigh. "We only
arrived last night," she pleaded. "Dear old Teresa, let us have one day
in London by ourselves!"

Teresa received this proposal with undisguised amazement and alarm,

"Jesu Maria! a day in London--and your aunt waiting for you all the
time! She is your second mother, my dear, by appointment; and her house
is your new home. And you propose to stop a whole day at an hotel,
instead of going home. Impossible! Write, my Carmina--write. See, here
is the address on a card:--'Fairfield Gardens.' What a pretty place
it must be to live in, with such a