nd yet
with the same faults in her face; but with her mother's perfect head and
brow and sympathetic, almost pitying, eyes. Her face has just that
peculiarity of her mother's, which, of all human countenances that I have
ever known, was the one that passed most quickly and completely from the
expression of gaiety to that of repose. Repose in her face always
suggested sadness; and while you were watching it with a kind of awe, and
wondering of what tragic secret it was the token, it kindled, on the
instant, into a radiant Italian smile. The Countess Scarabelli's smiles
tonight, however, were almost uninterrupted. She greeted me--divinely,
as her mother used to do; and young Stanmer sat in the corner of the
sofa--as I used to do--and watched her while she talked. She is thin and
very fair, and was dressed in light, vaporous black that completes the
resemblance. The house, the rooms, are almost absolutely the same; there
may be changes of detail, but they don't modify the general effect. There
are the same precious pictures on the walls of the salon--the same great
dusky fresco in the concave ceiling. The daughter is not rich, I
suppose, any more than the mother. The furniture is worn and faded, and
I was admitted by a solitary servant, who carried a twinkling taper
before me up the great dark marble staircase.

"I have often heard of you," said the Countess, as I sat down near her;
"my mother often spoke of you."

"Often?" I answered. "I am surprised at that."

"Why are you surprised? Were you not good friends?"

"Yes, for a certain time--very good friends. But I was sure she had
forgotten me."

"She never forgot," said the Countess, looking at me intently and
smiling. "She was not like that."

"She was not like most other women in any way," I declared.

"Ah, she was charming," cried the Countess, rattling open her fan. "I
have always been very curious to see you. I have received an impression
of you."

"A good one, I hope."

She looked at me, laughing, and not answering this: it was just her
mother's trick.

"'My Englishman,' she used to call you--'_il mio Inglese_.'"

"I hope she spoke of me kindly," I insisted.

The Countess, still laughing, gave a little shrug balancing her hand to
and fro. "So-so; I always supposed you had had a quarrel. You don't
mind my being frank like this--eh?"

"I delight in it; it reminds me of your mother."

"Every one tells me that. But I am not clever lik