r I heard of."

"You can't mean that her fortune is in peril?"

"I suppose that must suffer also. It is her character--her station as
one of us--that's shipwrecked here."

"Go on, go on," cried she, impatiently; "I wish to hear it all."

"All is very briefly related, then," said he. "The charming Countess,
you remember, ran away with a countryman of mine, young Glencore, of the
8th Hussars; I used to know his father intimately."

"Never mind his father."

"That 's exactly what Glencore did. He came over here and fell in
love with the girl, and they ran off together; but they forgot to get
married, Princess. Ha--ha--ha!" And he laughed with a cackle a demon
could not have rivalled.

"I don't believe a word of it,--I'll never believe it," cried the
Princess.

"That's exactly what I was recommending to the Mar-quesa Guesteni. I
said, you need n't believe it. Why, how do we go anywhere, nowadays,
except by 'not believing' the evil stories that are told of our
entertainers."

"Yes, yes; but I repeat that this is an infamous calumny. She, a
Countess, of a family second to none in all Italy; her father a Grand
d'Espagne. I 'll go to her this moment."

"She'll not see you. She has just refused to see La Genori," said the
Major, tartly. "Though, if a cracked reputation might have afforded any
sympathy, she might have admitted _her_."

"What is to be done?" exclaimed the Princess, sorrowfully.

"Just what you suggested a few moments ago,--don't believe it. Hang
me, but good houses and good cooks are growing too scarce to make one
credulous of the ills that can be said of their owners."

"I wish I knew what course to take," muttered the Princess.

"I'll tell you, then. Get half a dozen of your own set together
to-morrow morning, vote the whole story an atrocious falsehood, and
go in a body and tell the Countess your mind. You know as well as I,
Princess, that social credit is as great a bubble as commercial; we
should all of us be bankrupts if our books were seen. Ay, by Jove! and
the similitude goes farther too; for when one old established house
breaks, there is generally a crash in the whole community around it."

While they thus talked, a knot had gathered around the carriage, all
eager to hear what opinion the Princess had formed on the catastrophe.

Various were the sentiments expressed by the different speakers,--some
sorrowfully deploring the disaster; others more eagerly inveighing
against the infamy o