For some little time they amused themselves by merely contemplating the model, and wondering what character it could be intended to represent. The sombreness and peculiarity of the costume seemed to take their fancy vastly. In a few minutes, as the novelty of the impression began to wear away, they commenced handling the rosary, lifting up the white apron, and, ultimately, the black crape veil. This was a severe trial for the nerves of Miss Chutney; but with her teeth firmly set, and holding her breath, she remained with her eyes upturned, and with every feature and limb as rigid as if they were petrified. The men grew more pleased than ever with the life-like appearance of the figure, and could not keep from laughing at the apparent intensity of the model’s devotion. Presently, the cab-driver drew the short clay pipe from under the band of his hat, and saying to his companion, “I say, Jem, here’s a lark!” thrust the end of it into the corner of poor Miss Chutney’s mouth. The girl, though ready to shriek with horror and faint with disgust, still, by a violent effort, held the “dodeen” between her lips. The Count, she said to herself, would be sure to return directly, and then she would be free from all further insult and persecution. The friend of the cab-driver, determined not to be outdone by his companion, and discovering on the hob a lump of the charcoal that the Frenchmen had used to heat their bachelor’s kettle, seized it, and, approaching the alarmed Miss Chutney, began tracing on her upper lip a huge pair of black mustachios. This drollery tickled the driver of the cab to such a degree, that, spurred on by the comical appearance of the “model,” he ran to the grate, and having provided himself with another piece of the dingy material, began, in his turn, to adorn the lady’s cheeks with an equally enormous pair of whiskers. The wretched Miss Chutney felt every minute that she _must_ give way under the accumulated insults she was enduring, and had it not been for her reliance on the Count’s immediate return, she would have startled her tormentors by taking to her heels; but every minute she consoled and sustained herself with the assurance, that the next moment would bring her protector to her relief. “Oh!” she thought to herself, as she felt the cabman charcoaling her eyebrows, “if I had only known half I should have to go through, I’m sure I should never have dreamt of making such a silly of myself.” The embellishment of the “model’s” countenance being finished, the cabman and his “buck” retired a few paces to examine the effect of their handiwork, and burst into a suppressed fit of laughter at the extreme incongruity of the lady’s appearance—and certainly the extraordinary hirsute character of Miss Chutney’s countenance at that moment, embellished, as it was, with the most extravagant hairy appendages, was sufficient to burst the waistcoat-strings of any gentleman gifted with the slightest sense of the ridiculous.