your
_beaux yeux_, and your beauty generally."

"Who wafted so insane a breath as that?" asks Portia, with a suppressed
smile.

"Mark Gore. He puts in a good deal of his time here, too."

"Mark Gore never talks anything but the very utterest nonsense," says
Portia with a faint blush. "No one minds him. I shall be quite afraid to
go down-stairs to present myself to Dicky Browne after all you have
said. Consider his disappointment."

"I shan't," says Dulce, calmly, "and you needn't fear him. He is only
Dicky. Well, it is five now, and we dine at seven. I shall send your
maid to you, and I shall call back for you in an hour, if you wish, to
bring you down stairs with me. But, perhaps--"

"Oh! please do," says Portia, graciously. "I shall be just a little
strange at first, shan't I?"

"Strange here? _Indeed_ no," says Dulcinea, earnestly. "Nobody knows the
meaning of that word in this old Court. We all get friends with each
other at once, and I don't think we ever fall asunder again. Now at six
do try to be ready, and I will take you to see Uncle Christopher, who is
sure to be in just then."

"I shall be ready," says Portia, with determination.

CHAPTER II.

"The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind
is curiosity."--BURKE.

"YES, I am quite ready," says Portia.

The hour has flown, and Dulcinea, standing in the doorway of her
cousin's room, gazes on her with undisguised admiration. To Dulcinea,
anything lovely, be it man, or beast, or flower, is an intense and
everlasting delight, and now Portia enchants her. In very truth so well
she might, as a fairer picture than she presents at this moment can
hardly be imagined.

She is standing before a large glass, let into the wall on one side of
the room from ceiling to floor, and, with a back glass in her hand, is
leaning slightly to one side, as though lost in admiration of the soft
mass of fair, brown hair that lies coiled low down on her neck in
high-art fashion. She is like a soft harmony in black and gold, with her
filmy robes clinging closely round her, and the old gold, that is so
like tarnished yellow, touching her here and there.

"Ah! Mark was right," says Dulce, with a little sigh of intensest
pleasure. "Come down now (you _cannot_ make yourself more beautiful),
and be made known to Uncle Christopher."

It is in the library that Miss Vibart makes herself known. Dulce
entering first, with her gay little air, says: