covered the arms of these beauties, and their costumes showed them to be of station.  The crinoline of the two filled all the body of the ample coach from seat to seat, and the folds of their figured muslins, flowing out over this ample outline, gave to the face of each a daintiness of contour and feature which was not ill relieved by the high head-dress of ribbons and bepowdered hair.  Of the two ladies, one, even in despite of her crinoline, might have been seen to be of noble and queenly figure; the towering head-dress did not fully disguise the wealth of red-bronze hair.  Tall and well-rounded, vigorous and young, not yet twenty, adored by many suitors, the Lady Catharine Knollys had rarely looked better than she did this morning as she drove out to Sadler’s, for Providence alone knew what fault of a superb vital energy.  Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and every gesture betokened rather the grand young creature that she was than the valetudinarian going forth for healing.  Her cheek, turned now and again, showed a clear-cut and untouched soundness that meant naught but health.  It showed also the one blemish upon a beauty which was toasted in the court as faultless.  Upon the left cheek there was a mouche, excessive in its size.  Strangers might have commented on it.  Really it covered a deep-stained birth-mark, the one blur upon a peerless beauty.  Yet even this might be forgotten, as it was now.

The companion of the Lady Catharine in her coach was a young woman, scarce so tall and more slender.  The heavy hoop concealed much of the grace of figure which was her portion, but the poise of the upper body, free from the seat-back and erect with youthful strength as yet unspared, showed easily that here, too, was but an indifferent subject for Sadler’s.  Dark, where her companion was fair, and with the glossy texture of her own somber locks showing in the individual roll which ran back into the absurd fontange of false hair and falser powder, Mary Connynge made good foil for her bosom friend; though honesty must admit that neither had yet much concern for foils, since both had their full meed of gallants.  Much seen together, they were commonly known, as the Morning and Eve, sometimes as Aurora and Eve.  Never did daughter of the original Eve have deeper feminine guile than Mary Connynge.  Soft of speech—­as her friend, the Lady Catharine, was impulsive,—­slow, suave, amber-eyed and innocent of visage, this young English woman, with no dower save that of beauty and of wit, had not failed of a sensation at the capital whither she had come as guest of the Lady Catharine.  Three captains and a squire, to say nothing of a gouty colonel, had already fallen victims, and had heard their fate in her low, soft tones, which could whisper a fashionable oath in the accent of a hymn, and say “no” so sweetly that one could only beg to hear the word again.  It was perhaps of some such incident that these two young maids of old London conversed as they trundled slowly out toward the suburb of the city.