e invention, I will give you
my yellow cashmere shawl."

"He is a Count."

"Every Pole is a Count!"

"But he is not a Pole; he comes from Liva--Litha----"

"Lithuania?"

"No."

"Livonia?"

"Yes, that's it!"

"But what is his name?"

"I wonder if you are capable of keeping a secret."

"Cousin Betty, I will be as mute!----"

"As a fish?"

"As a fish."

"By your life eternal?"

"By my life eternal!"

"No, by your happiness in this world?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, his name is Wenceslas Steinbock."

"One of Charles XII.'s Generals was named Steinbock."

"He was his grand-uncle. His own father settled in Livonia after the
death of the King of Sweden; but he lost all his fortune during the
campaign of 1812, and died, leaving the poor boy at the age of eight
without a penny. The Grand Duke Constantine, for the honor of the name
of Steinbock, took him under his protection and sent him to school."

"I will not break my word," Hortense replied; "prove his existence,
and you shall have the yellow shawl. The color is most becoming to dark
skins."

"And you will keep my secret?"

"And tell you mine."

"Well, then, the next time I come you shall have the proof."

"But the proof will be the lover," said Hortense.

Cousin Betty, who, since her first arrival in Paris, had been bitten
by a mania for shawls, was bewitched by the idea of owning the yellow
cashmere given to his wife by the Baron in 1808, and handed down from
mother to daughter after the manner of some families in 1830. The shawl
had been a good deal worn ten years ago; but the costly object, now
always kept in its sandal-wood box, seemed to the old maid ever new,
like the drawing-room furniture. So she brought in her handbag a present
for the Baroness' birthday, by which she proposed to prove the existence
of her romantic lover.

This present was a silver seal formed of three little figures back to
back, wreathed with foliage, and supporting the Globe. They represented
Faith, Hope, and Charity; their feet rested on monsters rending each
other, among them the symbolical serpent. In 1846, now that such immense
strides have been made in the art of which Benvenuto Cellini was the
master, by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, Wagner, Jeanest, Froment-Meurice,
and wood-carvers like Lienard, this little masterpiece would amaze
nobody; but at that time a girl who understood the silversmith's art
stood astonished as she held the seal which Lisbeth put into he