and colouring were like a chord of music, harmonious,—­and hence the impression of satisfaction and composure her presence always gave.  In herself she was a creature of remarkable temperament and character;—­true womanly in every delicate sentiment, fancy and feeling, but with something of the man-hero in her scorn of petty aims, her delight in noble deeds, her courage, her ambition, her devotion to duty and her unflinching sense of honour.  Full of rare perceptions and instinctive knowledge of persons and motives, she could only be deceived and blinded where her deepest affections were concerned, and there she could certainly be fooled and duped as completely as the wisest of us all.  Looking at her now as she stood awaiting her uncle’s arrival in the drawing-room of her “suite,” the windows of which faced the Bois, she expressed to the air and surroundings the personality of a thoughtful, charming young woman,—­no more.  Her black silk gown, cut simply in the prevailing mode of definitely outlining the figure from throat to hips, and then springing out in pliant folds of trailing drapery, had nothing remarkable about it save its Parisian perfection of fit,—­the pale “Gloire de France” rose that rested lightly amongst the old lace at her neck, pinned, yet looking as though it had dropped there merely out of a languid desire to escape from further growing, was her only ornament.  Her hair, full of curious lights and shades running from brown to gold and gold to brown again, in a rippling uncertain fashion, clustered thickly over her brow and was caught back at the sides in a loose twist after the style of the Greek vestals,—­and her fine, small white hands and taper fingers, so skilled in the use of the artist’s brush, looked too tiny and delicate to be of any service save to receive the kisses of a lover’s lips,—­or to be raised, folded pure and calm, in a child-like appeal to Heaven.  Certainly in her fragile appearance she expressed nothing save indefinable charm—­no one, studying her physiognomy, would have accredited her with genius, power, and the large conceptions of a Murillo or a Raphael;—­yet within the small head lay a marvellous brain—­and the delicate body was possessed by a spirit of amazing potency to conjure with.  While she watched for the first glimpse of the carriage which was to bring her uncle the Cardinal, whom she loved with a rare and tender devotion, her thoughts were occupied with a letter she had received that morning from Rome,—­a letter “writ in choice Italian,” which though brief, contained for her some drops of the essence of all the world’s sweetness, and was worded thus—­

“My own love!—­A century seems to have passed away since you left Rome.  The hours move slowly without you—­they are days,—­even years!—­but I feel your spirit is always with me!  Absence for those who love, is not absence after all!  To the soul, time is nothing,—­ space is nothing,—­and my true and passionate love for you makes an invisible bridge, over which my thoughts run and fly to your sweet presence, carrying their delicious burden of a thousand kisses!—­a thousand embraces and blessings to the Angela and angel of my life!  From her devoted lover,