e
suspicion than his own. And yet it had done him marvellous service on
more than one occasion. It had astonished the bathers at St. Leonard,
and dazzled the dinner company at Tunbridge Wells; Harrogate had winked
under it, and Malvern gazed at it with awe; and society, so to say, was
divided into those who knew the man from the ring, and those who knew
the ring from the man.

CHAPTER VII. MRS. PENTHONY MORRIS

Our reader has been told how Mrs. Penthony Morris stormed the Villa
Caprini, established herself, child, maid, and Skye terrier within its
walls, and became, ere many days went over, a sort of influence in the
place. It is not in chemistry alone that a single ingredient, minute and
scarce perceptible, can change the property and alter all the quality
of the mass with which it is mingled. Human nature exhibits phenomena
precisely alike, and certain individuals possess the marvellous power
of tingeing the world they mix in, with their own hue and color, and
flavoring society with sweet or bitter, as temper induces them. The
first and most essential quality of such persons is a rapid--an actually
instinctive--appreciation of the characters they meet, even passingly,
in the world's intercourse. They have not to spell out temperaments
slowly and laboriously. To them men's natures are not written in
phonetic signs or dark symbols, but in letters large and legible. They
see, salute, speak with you, and they understand you. Not, perhaps, as
old friends know you, with reference to this or that minute trick of
mind or temper, but, with a far wider range of your character than even
old friends have taken, they know your likes and dislikes, the things
you fear and hope, the weak points you would fortify, and sometimes
the strong ones you would mask,--in a word, for all the purposes of
intercourse, they are able to estimate your strength and weakness, and
all this ere, perhaps, you have noted the accents of their voice or the
color of their eyes.

The lady of whom it is now our business to speak was one of this gifted
class. Whence she came, and how she became such, we are not about to
enter upon. She had had her share of trials, and yet was both young and
good-looking; her good looks in no wise evidencing the vestiges of
any sorrow. Whether a widowed or deserted wife, she bore bereavement
admirably; indeed, so far as one could see, she professed a very rare
ethical philosophy. Her theory was, the world was a very ni