ase,
her sister's 'diluted.' There was a tone of pique in the way the ladies
criticised the colonel's daughters, which I have often remarked in those
who, accustomed to the attentions of men themselves, without any unusual
effort to please on their part, are doubly annoyed when they perceive
a rival making more than ordinary endeavours to attract admirers. They
feel as a capitalist would, when another millionaire offers money at
a lower rate of interest. It is, as it were, a breach of conventional
etiquette, and never escapes being severely criticised.

As for me, I had no personal feeling at stake, and looked on at the game
of all parties with much amusement.

'Where is the Comte d'Espagne to-night?' said the baronne to the abbe.
'Has he been false?'

'Not at all; he was singing with mademoiselle when I was in the salon.'

'You'll have a dreadful rival there, Monsieur O'Leary,' said she
laughingly; 'he is the most celebrated swordsman and the best shot in
Flanders.'

'It is likely he may rust his weapons if he have no opportunity for
their exercise till I give it,' said I.

'Don't you admire her, then?' said she.

'The lady is very pretty, indeed,' said I.

'The heart led,' interrupted the abbe suddenly, as he touched my foot
beneath the table--'play a heart.'

Close beside my chair, and leaning over my cards, stood Mademoiselle
Laura herself at the moment.

'You have no heart,' said she, in English, and with a singular
expression on the words, while her downcast eye shot a glance--one
glance--through me.

'Yes, but I have though,' said I, discovering a card that lay concealed
behind another; 'it only requires a little looking for.'

'Not worth the trouble, perhaps,' said she, with a toss of her head, as
I threw the deuce upon the table; and before I could reply she was gone.

'I think her much prettier when she looks saucy,' said the baronne, as
if to imply that the air of pique assumed was a mere piece of acting got
up for effect.

I see it all, said I to myself. Foreign women can never forgive English
for being so much their superior in beauty and loveliness. Meanwhile our
game came to a close, and we gathered around the buffet.

There we found the old colonel, with a large silver tankard of mulled
wine, holding forth over some campaigning exploit, to which no one
listened for more than a second or two--and thus the whole room became
joint-stock hearers of his story. Laura stood eating her ice wit