sheen that is either gray,
or black, or blue, as you seek to look into their depths.

Hers were the plump white fingers that pulled the delicate rose-leaves
with which this cup was filled, till the air of that gloomy room was
fresh with the odours of a garden after evening rain.

Mathilde, her dark, proud sister, loved lilies best, and set them in a
jewelled vase. That vase perished in the great calamity that fell upon
the house, and the silver cup was among the few relics that were saved.
Alas! the beautiful, imperious Mathilde perished also in those evil
times.

Yes, this beautiful creature, whose coming seemed to lighten the dim
room in the old chateau with its hangings of amber damask, its gilded
panels framed with long slips of looking-glass; its satin chairs, its
quaint carved cabinets, filled with rare knick-knacks of ivory carvings,
jade-stones, jewelled daggers, boxes of filligree, and rare cups of
porcelain, like great opals, gleaming with strange lights that paled the
pearls with which their rims were set. There were tables and tripods
too, bearing bronzes and Oriental jars filled with scented woods and
spices; but it was over this silver cup that the sweet glowing face of
Sara Dormeur bent, as she stood watching for her lover's fluttering
signal amidst the trees that belted the sloping parterre, beyond the
broad stone balcony on which the windows opened.

For the father, Anton Dormeur, was averse to young Dufarge, who though
he belonged to a Protestant family among the tanners of Alais, was a man
of the people, without that connection with the old nobility which the
Huguenots cherished, even though they suffered continually by the laws
that king and nobles put in force against them.

The Protestants were loyal to the caste which yet refused to own them,
though they were of the best blood in France, or owned them secretly and
in fear, lest to be identified with the heretics might bring fire and
sword upon themselves.

Thus old Dormeur forbade Sara to have any more to say to Dufarge, but
encouraged the lover of his eldest girl, a man of twice her age, the
grim and saturnine Bartholde, by birth seigneur of an estate near
Lozere, where, however, he lived only on sufferance, for the title had
been abated after the persecutions following the Edict of Nantes, and
though Bartholde was rich, he had abandoned both title and the display
that belonged to it.

His was just such an alliance as the stately reserve