dmiration, and it was one of his
chiefest delights, when business was concluded, to carry Mr. Jefferson
and Calvert back to his aunt's drawing-room with him for a dish of tea
and an hour's conversation.

It was on one of those occasions that, having accompanied Mr. Jefferson
and d'Azay to the rue St. Honore in the latter's coach (Mr. Morris
promising to look in later), Mr. Calvert had the opportunity of speaking
at length with Madame de St. Andre for the first time since the
afternoon on the ice. When the three gentlemen entered the drawing-room
a numerous company was already assembled, the older members of which
were busy with quinze and lansquenet in a card-room that opened out of
the salon, the younger ones standing or sitting about in groups and
listening to a song which Monsieur de St. Aulaire, who was at the
harpsichord, had just begun. It was Blondel's song from Gretry's
"Richard Coeur de Lion," about which all Paris was crazy and which Garat
sang nightly with a prodigious success at the Opera. This aria Monsieur
de St. Aulaire essayed in faithful imitation of the great tenor's manner
and in a voice which showed traces of having once been beautiful, but
which age and excesses had now broken and rendered harsh and forced.

As Calvert saluted Adrienne, when the perfunctory applause which this
performance called forth had died away, he thought he had never seen her
look so lovely. She wore a dress of some soft water-green fabric shot
with threads of silver that fell away from her rounded throat and arms,
bringing the creamy fairness of her complexion (which, for the first
time, he saw enhanced by black patches) and the dusky brown of her hair
to a very perfection of beauty. She was standing by the harpsichord when
the gentlemen entered, but, on catching sight of Mr. Jefferson, she went
forward graciously, extending her hand, over which he bowed low in
admiration of that young beauty which, in his eyes, had no equal in
Paris.

There was another pair of eyes upon her which saw as Mr. Jefferson's
kindly ones did, but to them the young girl paid little attention, only
giving Mr. Calvert a brief courtesy as she went to salute her brother.

"Will you not make Mr. Jefferson a dish of tea, Adrienne?" asked d'Azay,
kissing her on both her fair cheeks. "And if we are to have music I beg
you will ask Calvert to sing for us, for he has the sweetest voice in
the world."

"What!" exclaimed the young girl, a little disdainful