ciety was alarmed at the news that
Countess W---- had been divorced from her husband. The event was all the
more unexpected, as they had apparently always lived very happily
together, and nobody was able to mention any man on whom she had
bestowed even the most passing attention, beyond the requirements of
politeness.

Long afterwards, however, a strange report became current. A chattering
lady's maid declared that the handsome riding-master had once so far
forgotten himself as to strike the Countess with his riding-whip; a
groom had told the Count of the occurrence, and when he was going to
call the insolent fellow to account for it, the Countess covered him
with her own body, and thus gave occasion for the divorce.

Years had passed since then and the Countess H---- had grow stouter and
more sentimental. Ischl and hayricks were not enough for her any longer;
she spent the winter on lovely _Lago Maggoire_, where she walked among
laurel bushes and cypress trees, and was rowed about on the luke warm,
moonlight nights.

One evening she was returning home in the company of an English lady who
was also a great lover of nature, from _Isola Bella_, when they met a
beautiful private boat in which a very unusual couple were sitting; a
small, delicate, light-haired woman, wrapped in a white burnoose, and a
handsome, athletic man, in tight, white breeches, a short, black velvet
coat trimmed with sable, a red fez on his head, and a riding whip in his
hand.

Countess K---- involuntarily uttered a loud exclamation.

"What is the matter with you?" the English lady asked. "Do you know
those people?"

"Certainly! She is a Viennese lady," Countess H---- whispered; "Countess
W----."

"Oh! Indeed you are quite mistaken; it is a Count Savelli and his wife.
They are a handsome couple, don't you think so?"

When the boat came nearer, she saw that in spite of that, it was little
Countess W---- and that the handsome man was her former riding-master,
whom she had married, and for whom she had bought a title from the Pope;
and as the two boats passed each other, the short sable cloak, which was
thrown carelessly over his shoulders, exhaled, like the old cat's skin
jacket of that impudent female circus rider, a strong _stable perfume_.

THE ILL-OMENED GROOM

An impudent theft, to a very large amount, had been committed in the
Capital. Jewels, a valuable watch set with diamonds, his wife's
miniature in a frame enchased with br