eetest eyes in the world, all vowed them to be; and there
was no man or woman, gentle or simple, who was not rejoiced by their
smiling.

"In my book of pictures," said the little Marquess to his mother once,
"there is an angel. She looks as you do when you come in your white
robe to kiss me before you go down to dine with the ladies and
gentlemen who are our guests. Your little shining crown is made of
glittering stones, and hers is only gold. Angels wear only golden
crowns--but you are like her, mother, only more beautiful."

The child from his first years was used to the passing and repassing
across his horizon of brilliant figures and interesting ones. From the
big mullioned window of his nursery he could see the visitors come and
go, he watched the beaux and beauties saunter in the park and
pleasaunce in their brocades, laces, and plumed hats, he saw the
scarlet coats ride forth to hunt, and at times fine chariots roll up
the avenue with great people in them come to make visits of state. His
little life was full of fair pictures and fair stories of them. When
the house was filled with brilliant company he liked nothing so much as
to sit on Mistress Halsell's knee or in his chair by her side and ask
her questions about the guests he caught glimpses of as they passed to
and fro. He was a child of strong imagination and with a great liking
for the romantic and poetic. He would have told to him again and again
any rumour of adventure connected with those he had beheld. He was
greatly pleased by the foreign ladies and gentlemen who were among the
guests--he liked to hear of the Court of King Louis the Fourteenth, and
to have pointed out to him those visitors who were personages connected
with it. He was attracted by the sound of foreign tongues, and would
inquire to which country a gentleman or lady belonged, and would thrust
his head out of the window when they sauntered on the terraces below
that he might hear them speak their language. As was natural, he heard
much interesting gossip from his attendants when they were not aware
that he was observing, they feeling secure in his extreme youth. He
could not himself exactly have explained how his conception of the
difference between the French and English Courts arose, but at seven
years old, he in some way knew that King Louis was a finer gentleman
than King Charles, that his Court was more elegant, and that the
beauties who ruled it were not merry orange wenches, or ro