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Since she had been the e old Catherine had shown to Archer the cordiality which a service rendered excites toward the person served She was persuaded that irrepressible passion was the cause of his i an ardent ad of enial twinkle of complicity and a play of allusion to which May seemed fortunately impervious

She examined and appraised with much interest the diamond-tipped arrohich had been pinned on May's boso that in her day a filigree brooch would have been thought enough, but that there was no denying that Beaufort did things handsomely

"Quite an heirloom, in fact, my dear," the old lady chuckled "You irl" She pinched May's white arm and watched the colour flood her face "Well, well, what have I said toto be any daughters--only boys, eh? Good gracious, look at her blushing again all over her blushes! What--can't I say that either? Mercy oddesses painted out overhead I always say I'm too thankful to have somebody about h, and May echoed it, crimson to the eyes

"Well, now tell et a straight word about it out of that silly Medora," the ancestress continued; and, as May exclai back to Portsot to come here first to pick up Ellen Ah--you didn't know Ellen had co for the su people about fifty years ago Ellen--ELLEN!" she cried in her shrill old voice, trying to bend forward far enough to catch a glimpse of the lawn beyond the verandah

There was no answer, and Mrs Mingott rapped impatiently with her stick on the shiny floor Ato the suoing down the path to the shore; and Mrs Mingott turned to Archer

"Run down and fetch her, like a good grandson; this pretty lady will describe the party to me," she said; and Archer stood up as if in a dream

He had heard the Countess Olenska's na the year and a half since they had last met, and was even familiar with the main incidents of her life in the interval He knew that she had spent the previous sureat deal into society, but that in the autumn she had suddenly sub-let the "perfect house" which Beaufort had been at such pains to find for her, and decided to establish herself in Washington There, during the winter, he had heard of her (as one always heard of pretty wo in the "brilliant diplomatic society" that was supposed to s of the Administration He had listened to these accounts, and to various contradictory reports on her appearance, her conversation, her point of view and her choice of friends, with the detach since dead; not till Medora suddenly spoke her na presence to hiain The Marchioness's foolish lisp had called up a vision of the little fire-lit drawing-roo down the deserted street He thought of a story he had read, of so a bunch of straw in a wayside cavern, and revealing old silent ies in their painted tomb