In age she was about thirty; but Frank, who was no great judge in these matters, and who was accustomed to have very young girls round him, at once put her down as being ten years older.  She had a very high colour, very red cheeks, a large mouth, big white teeth, a broad nose, and bright, small, black eyes.  Her hair also was black and bright, but very crisp, and strong, and was combed close round her face in small crisp black ringlets.  Since she had been brought out into the fashionable world some of her instructors in fashion had given her to understand that curls were not the thing.  ’They’ll always pass muster,’ Miss Dunstable had replied, ’when they are done up with bank-notes.’  It may therefore be presumed that Miss Dunstable had a will of her own.

‘Frank,’ said the countess, in the most natural and unpremeditated way, as soon as she caught her nephew’s eye, ’come here.  I want to introduce you to Miss Dunstable.’  The introduction was then made.  ’Mrs Proudie, would you excuse me?  I must positively go and say a few words to Mrs Barlow, or the poor woman will feel herself huffed’; and so saying, she moved off, leaving the coast clear for Master Frank.

He of course slipped into his aunt’s place, and expressed a hope that Miss Dunstable was not fatigued by her journey.

‘Fatigued!’ said she, in a voice rather loud, but very good-humoured, and not altogether unpleasing; ’I am not to be fatigued by such a thing as that.  Why, in May we came through all the way from Rome to Paris without sleeping—­that is, without sleeping in a bed—­and we were upset three times out of the sledges coming over the Simplon.  It was such fun!  Why, I wasn’t to say tired even then.’

‘All the way from Rome to Paris!’ said Mrs Proudie—­in a tone of astonishment, meant to flatter the heiress—­’and what made you in such a hurry?’

‘Something about money matters,’ said Miss Dunstable, speaking rather louder than usual.  ’Something to do with the ointment.  I was selling the business just then.’

Mrs Proudie bowed, and immediately changed the conversation.  ’Idolatry is, I believe, more rampant than ever in Rome,’ said she; ’and I fear there is no such thing at all as Sabbath observance.’

‘Oh, not in the least,’ said Miss Dunstable, with rather a joyous air; ‘Sundays and week-days are all the same there.’

‘How very frightful!’ said Mrs Proudie.

’But it’s a delicious place.  I do like Rome, I must say.  And as for the Pope, if he wasn’t quite so fat he would be the nicest old fellow in the world.  Have you been in Rome, Mrs Proudie?’

Mrs Proudie sighed as she replied in the negative, and declared her belief that danger was apprehended from such visits.

’Oh!—­ah!—­the malaria—­of course—­yes; if you go at the wrong time; but nobody is such a fool as that now.’

‘I was thinking of the soul, Miss Dunstable,’ said the lady-bishop, in her peculiar grave tone.  ’A place where there are no Sabbath observances—­’