feet, her hand relapsed into
the muslin folds, and she fixed her eye upon it with a kind of indolent
surprise, drooping her lids gradually till, as the fruit scattered over
the ottoman, they closed entirely, and a liquid jet line was alone
visible through the heavy lashes. There was an imperial indifference in
it worthy of Juno.

Miss McLush rarely walks. When she does, it is with the deliberate
majesty of a Dido. Her small, plump feet melt to the ground like
snowflakes; and her figure sways to the indolent motion of her limbs
with a glorious grace and yieldingness quite indescribable. She was
idling slowly up the Mall one evening just at twilight, with a servant
at a short distance behind her, who, to while away the time between his
steps, was employing himself in throwing stones at the cows feeding
upon the Common. A gentleman, with a natural admiration for her splendid
person, addressed her. He might have done a more eccentric thing.
Without troubling herself to look at him, she turned to her servant and
requested him, with a yawn of desperate ennui, to knock that fellow
down! John obeyed his orders; and, as his mistress resumed her lounge,
picked up a new handful of pebbles, and tossing one at the nearest cow,
loitered lazily after.

Such supreme indolence was irresistible. I gave in--I--who never
before could summon energy to sigh--I--to whom a declaration was
but a synonym for perspiration--I--who had only thought of love
as a nervous complaint, and of women but to pray for a good
deliverance--I--yes--I--knocked under. Albina McLush! Thou wert too
exquisitely lazy. Human sensibilities cannot hold out forever.

I found her one morning sipping her coffee at twelve, with her eyes wide
open. She was just from the bath, and her complexion had a soft, dewy
transparency, like the cheek of Venus rising from the sea. It was the
hour, Lurly had told me, when she would be at the trouble of thinking.
She put away with her dimpled forefinger, as I entered, a cluster of
rich curls that had fallen over her face, and nodded to me like a
water-lily swaying to the wind when its cup is full of rain.

"Lady Albina," said I, in my softest tone, "how are you?"

"Bettina," said she, addressing her maid in a voice as clouded and rich
as the south wind on an AEolian, "how am I to-day?"

The conversation fell into short sentences. The dialogue became a
monologue. I entered upon my declaration. With the assistance of
Bettina, who sup