n it," said Mrs. Rayne--"'tis bad enough when it comes. Do
you remember that Greek woman in _Lothair,_ whose father was so
fearfully rich that she seemed to be all crusted with precious stones?"

"Perfectly."

"To dance and sing was all she lived for, and Lothair must needs bring
in the skeleton, as you did, by reminding her of the dolorous time when
she would neither dance nor sing. You think she is crushed, to be sure,
only Disraeli's characters never are crushed, any more than himself. 'Oh
then,' she says, 'we will be part of the audience, and other people will
dance and sing for us.' So beauty is always with us, though one person
loses it."

She gave a little shrug of her shoulders, which made her pearls and
velvet shimmer in the moonlight. She looked so white and cool and
perfect, so apart from common clay, that all at once Queen Guinevere
ceased to be my type of her, and I thought of "Lilith, first wife of
Adam," as we see her in Rossetti's fanciful poem:

Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft, sweet woman.

We all went to our rooms after this, and in each of ours hung a
full-length swinging mirror; I had never seen one before, except in a
picture-shop or in a hotel.

"Truly this is 'richness'!" I said, walking up and down and sideways
from one to the other.

"I had no idea you had so much vanity," said Frank, laughing at me, as
he has done ever since he was born.

"Vanity! not a spark. I am only seeing myself as others see me, for the
first time."

"I always had a glass like that in my room at home," said my
sister-in-law, with the least morsel of disdain in her tone.

"Had you? Then you have lost a great deal by growing up to such things.
A first sensation at my age is delightful."

Next day Rhoda and I were sitting with Mrs. Rayne in her dressing-room,
with a great fan swinging overhead. We all had books in our hands, but I
found more charming reading in my hostess, whose fascinations hourly
grew upon me.

She wore a long loose wrapper, clear blue in color, with little silver
stars on it. I don't know how much of my admiration sprang from her
perfect taste in dress. Raiment has an extraordinary effect on the whole
machinery of life. Most people think too lightly of it. Somebody says if
Cleopatra's nose had been a quarter of an inch shorter, the history of
the world would have been utterly changed; but Antony might equally have
been proof against a robe with high