was
walking beside her; she took hold of her hand again, smiling always.
"And you, cousine, where did you get that enchanting complexion?"
she went on; "such lilies and roses?" The roses in poor Charlotte's
countenance began speedily to predominate over the lilies, and she
quickened her step and reached the portico. "This is the country
of complexions," the Baroness continued, addressing herself to Mr.
Wentworth. "I am convinced they are more delicate. There are very good
ones in England--in Holland; but they are very apt to be coarse. There
is too much red."

"I think you will find," said Mr. Wentworth, "that this country is
superior in many respects to those you mention. I have been to England
and Holland."

"Ah, you have been to Europe?" cried the Baroness. "Why did n't you come
and see me? But it 's better, after all, this way," she said. They were
entering the house; she paused and looked round her. "I see you have
arranged your house--your beautiful house--in the--in the Dutch taste!"

"The house is very old," remarked Mr. Wentworth. "General Washington
once spent a week here."

"Oh, I have heard of Washington," cried the Baroness. "My father used to
tell me of him."

Mr. Wentworth was silent a moment, and then, "I found he was very well
known in Europe," he said.

Felix had lingered in the garden with Gertrude; he was standing before
her and smiling, as he had done the day before. What had happened the
day before seemed to her a kind of dream. He had been there and he had
changed everything; the others had seen him, they had talked with him;
but that he should come again, that he should be part of the future,
part of her small, familiar, much-meditating life--this needed, afresh,
the evidence of her senses. The evidence had come to her senses now;
and her senses seemed to rejoice in it. "What do you think of Eugenia?"
Felix asked. "Is n't she charming?"

"She is very brilliant," said Gertrude. "But I can't tell yet. She seems
to me like a singer singing an air. You can't tell till the song is
done."

"Ah, the song will never be done!" exclaimed the young man, laughing.
"Don't you think her handsome?"

Gertrude had been disappointed in the beauty of the Baroness Munster;
she had expected her, for mysterious reasons, to resemble a very pretty
portrait of the Empress Josephine, of which there hung an engraving
in one of the parlors, and which the younger Miss Wentworth had always
greatly admired. But t