ad been
poured into more or less fine or clumsy mould, and there were others who
were sharply carved as with a knife. He loved a woman's face to look
_ciselee_, he said. That is why he did not entirely admire his niece,
for although the mould was of the finest in her case, her small nose was
not chiseled. Numbers of English and some Austrians were chiseled, he
affirmed--showing their race--but very few of other nations.

Now some people would have said the Lady Ethelrida was too chiseled--she
might grow peaky, with old age. But no one could deny the extreme
refinement of the young woman.

She was strikingly fair, with silvery light hair that had no yellow in
it; and kind, wise, gray eyes. Her figure in its slenderness was a thing
which dressmakers adored; there was so little of it that any frock could
be made to look well on it.

Lady Ethelrida did everything with moderation. She was not mad about any
sport or any fad. She loved her father, her aunt, her cousins of the
Tancred family, and her friend, Lady Anningford. She was, in short, a
fine character and a great lady.

"I have come to tell you such a piece of news, Ethelrida," Tristram said
as he sat down beside her on the chintz-covered sofa. Ethelrida's tastes
in furniture and decorations were of the simplest in her own room.
"Guess what it is!"

"How can I, Tristram? Mary is really going to marry Lord Henry?"

"Not that I know of as yet, but I daresay she will, some day. No, guess
again; it is about a marriage."

She poured him out some tea and indicated the bread and butter.
Tristram, she knew, loved her stillroom maid's brown bread and butter.

"A man, or a woman?" she asked, meditatively.

"A man--ME!" he said, with reckless grammar.

"You, Tristram!" Ethelrida exclaimed, with as much excitement as she
ever permitted herself. "You going to be married! But to whom?"

The thing seemed too preposterous; and her mind had instantly flown to
the name, Laura Highford, before her reason said, "How ridiculous--she
is married already!"--so she repeated again: "But to whom?"

"I am going to be married to a widow, a niece of Francis Markrute's; you
know him." Lady Ethelrida nodded. "She is the most wonderfully
attractive creature you ever saw, Ethelrida, a type not like any one
else. You'll understand in a minute, when you see her. She has stormy
black eyes--no, they are not really black; they are slate color--and red
hair, and a white face, and, by Jove! a fi