d me with a languid Spanish smile and a lazy display of
white teeth, as if my arrival was quite natural. Don Enriquez, "of a
fact," was not himself in the casa, but was expected "on the instant."
"Donna Urania" was at home.

"Donna Urania"? For an instant I had forgotten that Mrs. Saltillo's
first name was Urania, so pleasantly and spontaneously did it fall
from the Spanish lips. Nor was I displeased at this chance of learning
something of Don Enriquez's fortunes and the Saltillo menage before
confronting my old friend. The servant preceded me to the next floor,
and, opening a door, ushered me into the lady's presence.

I had carried with me, on that upward climb, a lively recollection of
Miss Mannersley as I had known her two years before. I remembered her
upright, almost stiff, slight figure, the graceful precision of her
poses, the faultless symmetry and taste of her dress, and the atmosphere
of a fastidious and wholesome cleanliness which exhaled from her. In the
lady I saw before me, half reclining in a rocking-chair, there was
none of the stiffness and nicety. Habited in a loose gown of some easy,
flexible, but rich material, worn with that peculiarly indolent
slouch of the Mexican woman, Mrs. Saltillo had parted with half her
individuality. Even her arched feet and thin ankles, the close-fitting
boots or small slippers of which were wont to accent their delicacy,
were now lost in a short, low-quartered kid shoe of the Spanish type,
in which they moved loosely. Her hair, which she had always worn with a
certain Greek simplicity, was parted at one side. Yet her face, with
its regularity of feature, and small, thin, red-lipped mouth, was quite
unchanged; and her velvety brown eyes were as beautiful and inscrutable
as ever.

With the same glance I had taken in her surroundings, quite as
incongruous to her former habits. The furniture, though of old and heavy
mahogany, had suffered from careless alien hands, and was interspersed
with modern and unmatchable makeshifts, yet preserving the distinctly
scant and formal attitude of furnished lodgings. It was certainly
unlike the artistic trifles and delicate refinements of her uncle's
drawing-room, which we all knew her taste had dictated and ruled. The
black and white engravings, the outlined heads of Minerva and Diana,
were excluded from the walls for two cheap colored Catholic prints,--a
soulless Virgin, and the mystery of the Bleeding Heart. Against the
wall, in one