Thomas Elgin, and the
other for Mrs. Brian; for he knew very well that his adored Sarah would
never consent to part with her dear relatives, who had been father and
mother to her.

The last words remained in his throat; he stood as if he were petrified,
his eyes starting from their sockets, his mouth wide open.

Mrs. Brian had entered the room, followed by Miss Brandon. Daniel was
even more struck by her strange beauty to-day than at the opera; it
was literally dazzling. She wore on that night a dress of tea-color
embroidered with tiny bouquets in Chinese silk, and trimmed below with
an immense flounce of plaited muslin. In her hair, which looked even
more carelessly put up than usually, she had nothing but a branch of
fuschia, the crimson bells falling gracefully down upon her neck, where
they mingled with her golden curls.

She came smilingly up to Count Ville-Handry, and, offering him her brow
to kiss, she said,--

"Do I look well, dear count?"

He trembled from head to foot; and all he could do was to stretch out
his lips, and to stammer in an almost ecstatic tone of voice,--

"Oh, beautiful! too beautiful!"

"It has taken you long enough, I am sure," said Sir Thorn
severely,--"too long!"

He might have known that Miss Brandon had accomplished a miracle of
expeditiousness; for it was not a quarter of an hour since she returned
to the house.

"You are an impertinent villain, Thorn," she said, laughing in the fresh
and hearty manner of a child; "and I am very happy that the presence of
the count relieves _me_ from your eternal sermons."

"Sarah!" exclaimed Mrs. Brian reprovingly.

But she had already turned round, with her hand outstretched towards
Daniel,--

"I am so glad you have come, sir!" she said. "I am sure we shall
understand each other admirably."

She told him this with the softest possible voice; but, if he had known
her better, he would have read in the way in which she looked at him,
that her disposition towards him had entirely changed since yesterday;
then she wished him well; now she hated him savagely.

"Understand each other?" he repeated as he bowed; "in what?"

She made no answer.

The servant announced some of the usual visitors; and she went to
receive them. Ten o'clock struck; and from that moment the invited
guests did not cease to arrive. At eleven o'clock there were perhaps a
hundred persons in the room; and in the two adjoining rooms card-tables
had been arranged.

I