Dives and Lazarus. So standing, she looked at me with two soft brown
eyes, neither large nor beautiful, but in their outlook direct and
simple as a child's. Remembering as I met them what Mrs. Molyneux had
said, I saw and comprehended as well what she meant. Benevolence is but
faintly inscribed, on the faces of most men, even of the better sort.
"I will love you, my neighbour," we thereon decipher, "when I have
attended to my own business, in the first place; if you are lovable, or
at least likeable, in the second." But in the transparent gaze that
Cecilia de Noel turned upon her fellows beamed love poured forth without
stint and without condition. It was as if every man, woman, and child
who approached her became instantly to her more interesting than
herself, their defects more tolerable, their wants more imperative,
their sorrows more moving than her own. In this lay the source of that
mysterious charm so many have felt, so few have understood, and yielding
to which even those least capable of appreciating her confessed that,
whatever her conduct might be, she herself was irresistibly lovable. A
kind of dream-like haze seemed to envelop us as I introduced myself, as
she smiled upon me, as she resigned the child to its mother and bid them
tenderly farewell; but the clear air of the real became distinct again
when there stood suddenly before us a fat elderly female, whose
countenance was flushed with mingled anxiety and displeasure.

"Law bless me, mem!" said the newcomer, "I could not think wherever you
could be. I have been looking up and down for you, all through the
first-class carriages."

"I am so sorry, Parkins," said Mrs. de Noel penitently; "I ought to have
let you know that I changed my carriage at Carchester. I wanted to nurse
a baby whose mother was looking ill and tired. I saw them on the
platform, and then they got into a third-class carriage, so I thought
the best way would be to get in with them."

"And where, if you please, mem," inquired Parkins, in an icy tone and
with a face stiffened by repressed displeasure--"where do you think you
have left your dressing-bag and humbrella?"

Mrs. de Noel fixed her sweet eyes upon the speaker, as if striving to
recollect the answer to this question and then replied--

"She told me she lived quite near the station. I wish I had asked her
how far. She is much too weak to walk any distance. I might have found a
fly for her, might I not?"

Upon which Parkins gav