carmine
hue, that gave a character of brilliancy to the whole countenance; her
figure inclined to embonpoint, was exquisitely moulded, and in her
walk there appeared the composed and resolute carriage of one whose
temperament, however mild and unruffled, was still based on principles
too strong to be shaken. She was indeed a perfect specimen of her
nation, embodying in her character the thrift, the propriety, the high
sense of honour, the rigid habits of order, so eminently Dutch; but
withal there ran through her nature the golden thread of romance, and
beneath that mild eyebrow there were the thoughts and hopes of a highly
imaginative mind.

'The mission consisted of an old secretary of embassy, Van Dohein, a
veteran diplomat of some sixty years, and Edward Norvins, the youth I
speak of. Such was the family party, for you are aware that they all
lived in the same house, and dined together every day--the _attaches_
of the mission being specially intrusted to the care and attention of
the head of the mission, as if they were his own children. Norvins soon
fell in love with the pretty Marguerite. How could it be otherwise? They
were constantly together; he was her companion at home, her attendant
at every ball; they rode out together, walked, read, drew, and sang
together, and in fact very soon became inseparable. In all this there
was nothing which gave rise to remark. The intimate habits of a mission
permitted such; and as her father, deeply immersed in affairs of
diplomacy, had no time to busy himself about them, no one else did. The
secretary had followed the same course at every mission for the first
ten years of his career, and only deemed it the ordinary routine of an
_attaches_ life.

'Such, then, was the pleasant current of their lives, when an event
occurred which was to disturb its even flow--ay, and alter the channel
for ever. A despatch arrived one morning at the mission, informing them
that a certain Monsieur von Halsdt, a son of one of the ministers, who
had lately committed some breach of discipline in a cavalry regiment,
was about to be attached to the mission. Never was such a shock as
Marguerite and her lover sustained. To her the idea of associating with
a wild, and unruly character like this was insupportable. To him it was
misery; he saw at once all his daily intimacy with her interrupted; he
perceived how their former habits could no longer be followed--that
with this arrival must cease the compa