comes d'Azay with the Duchess and Madame de St. Andre,
attended as usual by St. Aulaire."

Calvert followed Beaufort's glance and saw entering the room his friend
d'Azay, at whose side, slowly and proudly, walked an old woman. She bore
herself with a nobility of carriage Calvert had never seen equalled, and
her face, wrinkled and powdered and painted though it was, was the face
of one who had been beautiful and used to command. Her dark eyes were
still brilliant and glittered humorously and shrewdly from beneath their
bushy brows. The lean, veined neck, bedecked with diamonds, was still
poised proudly on the bent shoulders. Her wrecked beauty was a perfect
foil for the fresh loveliness of the young girl who, with a splendidly
attired cavalier, followed closely behind her.

"Is she not a beauty?" said Beaufort, under his breath, to Calvert. With
a start the young man recognized the original of the miniature that
d'Azay had shown him that last evening at Monticello, so many years ago.
It is to be doubted whether, in the interim, Calvert had bestowed a
thought upon the beautiful French girl, but as he looked at the deep
blue eyes shining divinely beneath the straight brows, at the crimson
mouth, with its determined but lovely curves, at the cloud of dark hair
about the white brow, it suddenly seemed to him as if the picture had
never been out of his mind. "The Lass with the Delicate Air" was before
him, but changed. The look of girlish immaturity was gone--replaced by
an imperious decision of manner. A haughty, almost wayward, expression
was on the smiling face--a look of dawning worldliness and caprice.
'Twas as if the thought which had once passed through Calvert's mind had
come true--that countenance which had been capable of developing into
noble loveliness or hardening into unpleasing, though striking, beauty,
had somehow chosen the latter way. The spiritual beauty seemed now in
eclipse and only the earthly, physical beauty remained.

Calvert had opportunity to note these subtle changes which time had
wrought in the original of the miniature while Mr. Jefferson bent low
over the withered, beringed hand of the old Duchess, and he waited his
turn to be presented to the ladies. The ceremony over, he and d'Azay
greeted each other as old friends and comrades-in-arms are wont to do.
They had scarce time to exchange a word, however, as Monsieur de Segur,
coming up hurriedly, carried d'Azay and Beaufort away to where a grou