ame,
admitted that he was 'very well.'

One day, a new face appeared at table to interest me; and as the
mysterious gentleman and his diamond ring had puzzled me for a
fortnight, during which I had made no progress towards ascertaining
his real position and character, I was not sorry to have my attention
a little diverted by a mysterious lady. Madame de Mourairef--a Russian
name, thought I--was a very agreeable person to look at; much more so
to me than M. Jerome. She was not much past twenty years of age;
small, slight, elegant in shape, if not completely so in manners; and
with one of those charming little faces which you can analyse into
ugliness, but which in their synthesis, to speak as moderns should,
are admirable, adorable, fascinating. I should have thought that such
a _minois_ could belong only to Paris--the city, by the way, of ugly
women, whom art makes charming. However, there it was above the
shoulders, high of course--swan-necked women are only found in
England--above the shoulders of a Russian marchioness, princess,
czarina, or what you will, who called for her cigarettes after dinner,
was attended by a little _soubrette_, named Penelope, and looked for
all the world as if she had just been whirled off the boards of the
Opera Comique.

I at first believed that this was a mere _mascarade_; but when a
letter in a formidable envelope, with the seal of the Russian embassy,
arrived, and was exhibited in the absence of the lady herself, to
every one of the lodgers, in proof of the aristocratic character of
the customer of the Tete Noire, I began to doubt my own perspicacity,
and to imagine that I had now a far more interesting object of study
than M. Jerome and his diamond ring. Madame de Mourairef was an
exceedingly affable person; and the English family aforesaid, whom I
have reason to believe were Cockney tradesfolks, pronounced her to be
very high-bred--without a fault, indeed, if it had not been for that
horrid habit of smoking, which, as they judiciously observed, however,
was a peculiar characteristic of the Russians. I am afraid, they would
have set her down as a vulgar wretch, had they not been forewarned
that she was aristocratic. The French lady seemed to look upon the
foreign one as an intruder, and scarcely deigned to turn her eyes in
that direction. Probably this was because she was so charming, and
monopolised so much of the attention of us gentlemen.

'They no sooner looked than they loved,