Mr. and Mrs. Oswald now politely urged my mother and myself to favour them with our company at dinner, my husband having promised to return to them by five o'clock; but we declined it, and Seymour attended us home. Seymour expressed more by his looks than his words the pleasure my change of dress and countenance had occasioned him; for he was too delicate to expatiate on what must recall to my mind only too forcibly the cause of the difference which he had deplored: but when he rejoiced over my recovered bloom, and _embonpoint_, I reminded him that my bloom was caused by my lining, and my seeming plumpness by my pelisse. This was only too true. Still I was, he saw, disposed to be all he wished me; and when we reached our house, and he beheld baskets of flowers in all the rooms, as usual; when he beheld the light of day allowed to penetrate into every apartment, except where the sun was too powerful; when he saw my guitar had been moved from its obscurity, and that my portfolio seemed full of drawings; he folded my still thin form with fondness to his heart, and declared that he now felt himself quite a happy man again. Nor would he leave me, to dine at Oswald Lodge; and he sent an excuse, but promised to call there on the morrow and take me with him. The next day he summoned me to get ready to fulfil his promise, and I obeyed him, but with reluctance; for I felt already sure that I should not like these new friends. In Lord Martindale I already saw an audacious man of the world; and those spendthrift Oswalds, those beings who seemed to think they came into life merely to amuse it away, did not seem at all suited to my taste or principles, and were certain to be dangerous to a man of Seymour's tendency to expense. On our way thither I asked if Lord Martindale was married; and with a cheek which glowed with emotion he replied, "Married! Oh yes! did I not mention Lady Martindale to you? How strange!" But I did not think it so, when I heard him descant on her various attractions and talents with an eloquence which was by no means pleasing to me. "Indeed," said I, sighing as I spoke, "I feel it a great compliment, that you preferred staying with your faded wife to dining with this brilliant beauty." "Brilliant beauty! dear girl! In beauty she is not to be compared to you. She is certainly ten years older, and never was a beauty in her life. She has very fine eyes, fine teeth, fine hair, and a little round, perfectly formed person: _au reste_, she is sallow, and, when not animated, plain: in her expression, her endless variety, her gracefulness, and her vivacity, lies her great charm. Altogether _c'est une petite personne des plus piquantes_; and with even more than the usual attraction of her countrywomen." "Is she French then?"