‘My dear, I think it will be incumbent on us to depart very quickly.’

Much to the Countess’s chagrin and astonishment, Caroline replied: 

‘I shall hardly be sorry.’

’Not sorry?  Why, what now, dear one?  Is it true, then, that a flagellated female kisses the rod?  Are you so eager for a repetition of Strike?’

Caroline, with some hesitation, related to her more than the Countess had ventured to petition for in her prayers.

‘Oh! how exceedingly generous!’ the latter exclaimed.  How very refreshing to think that there are nobles in your England as romantic, as courteous, as delicate as our own foreign ones!  But his Grace is quite an exceptional nobleman.  Are you not touched, dearest Carry?’

Caroline pensively glanced at the reflection of her beautiful arm in the glass, and sighed, pushing back the hair from her temples.

‘But, for mercy’s sake!’ resumed the Countess, in alarm at the sigh, ’do not be too—­too touched.  Do, pray, preserve your wits.  You weep!  Caroline, Caroline!  O my goodness; it is just five-and-twenty minutes to the first dinner-bell, and you are crying!  For God’s sake, think of your face!  Are you going to be a Gorgon?  And you show the marks twice as long as any other, you fair women.  Squinnying like this!  Caroline, for your Louisa’s sake, do not!’

Hissing which, half angrily and half with entreaty, the Countess dropped on her knees.  Caroline’s fit of tears subsided.  The eldest of the sisters, she was the kindest, the fairest, the weakest.

‘Not,’ said the blandishing Countess, when Caroline’s face was clearer, ’not that my best of Carrys does not look delicious in her shower.  Cry, with your hair down, and you would subdue any male creature on two legs.  And that reminds me of that most audacious Marquis de Remilla.  He saw a dirty drab of a fruit-girl crying in Lisbon streets one day, as he was riding in the carriage of the Duchesse de Col da Rosta, and her husband and duena, and he had a letter for her—­the Duchesse.  They loved!  How deliver the letter?  “Save me!” he cried to the Duchesse, catching her hand, and pressing his heart, as if very sick.  The Duchesse felt the paper—­turned her hand over on her knee, and he withdrew his.  What does my Carry think was the excuse he tendered the Duke?  This—­and this gives you some idea of the wonderful audacity of those dear Portuguese—­that he—­he must precipitate himself and marry any woman he saw weep, and be her slave for the term of his natural life, unless another woman’s hand at the same moment restrained him!  There!’ and the Countess’s eyes shone brightly.

‘How excessively imbecile!’ Caroline remarked, hitherto a passive listener to these Lusitanian contes.

It was the first sign she had yet given of her late intercourse with a positive Duke, and the Countess felt it, and drew back.  No more anecdotes for Caroline, to whom she quietly said: