et off her own brilliant complexion and imperial
proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess
turned haughtily upon me, but did not see me,--looked through and beyond
me, as if I had been nothing but gossamer, feathers, air; and the little
black, bead-like eyes of the insect pierced me maliciously an instant,
as the barouche dashed past, and disappeared in the Rue de Rivoli. I was
humiliated; I felt that I was recognized,--known as the rash youth who
had just called at the Hotel de Waldoborough, been told that Madam was
out, and had stopped outside to catch the hotel in a lie. It is very
singular--how do you explain it?--that it should have seemed to me the
circumstance was something, not for Madam, but for me to be ashamed of!
I don't believe that the color of her peachy cheeks was heightened the
shadow of a shade; but as for me, I blushed to the tips of my ears.

"You may believe that I did not go away in such a cheerful frame of mind
as might have encouraged me to repeat my call in a hurry. I just coldly
enclosed to her my cousin's letter of introduction, along with my
address; and said to myself, 'Now, she'll know what a deuse of a fellow
she has slighted: she'll know she has put an affront upon a connection
of the Todworths!' I was very silly, you see, for I had not yet--but I
am coming to that part of my story.

"Well, returning to my lodgings a few days afterwards, I found a note
which had been left for me by a liveried footman,--Madam Waldoborough's
footman, O heaven! I was thrown into great trepidation by the stupendous
event, and eagerly inquired if Madam herself was in her carriage, and
was immensely relieved to learn she was not; for, unspeakably gratifying
as such condescension, such an Olympian compliment, would have been
under other circumstances, I should have felt it more than offset by the
mortification of knowing that she knew, that her own eyes had beheld,
the very humble quarter in which a lack of means had compelled me to
locate myself.

"I turned from that frightful possibility to the note itself. It was
everything I could have asked. It was ambrosia, it was nectar. I had
done a big thing when I fired the Todworth gun: it had brought the enemy
to terms. My cousin was complimented, and I was welcomed to Paris,
and--THE HOTEL WALDOBOROUGH!

"'Why have you not called to see me?' the note inquired, with charming
innocence. 'I shall be at home to-morrow morning at two o'clock;