"They are indeed," answered the Lady Arabella, "almost as strange as man's own heart." "Here was I," continued her companion, not appearing to heed her words, "riding on an errand of much importance to visit a fair and noble lady, whom I should have missed seeing till it was too late, had it not been for a shower of rain." "If you mean me, sir," said the fair girl beside him, "you must have made some mistake in your errand; for I am a being of so little consequence myself that nothing of importance can have reference to me." "You may in a few weeks be of much more," replied the Baron. "Nay, heaven forbid!" cried Arabella, resuming the gay and jesting tone which she had laid aside for a moment. "I can conceive no fate more perverse than that which would make me of any consequence at all. I never knew a bird that cared, so that his wings were tied, whether the threads that tied them were golden or hempen. Greatness is a snare from which one never escapes, once having fallen into it.--But, good truth, I am curious who you can be, sir," she continued, stopping him as he was about to speak; "I am shrewd at divining; but yet men take such disguises now-a-days, a poor woman can hardly discover them. Nay, tell me not, tell me not! I love to puzzle out a mystery, and I would fain guess for myself who and what you may be." "Who think you, madam?" asked the stranger. "Baron de Mardyke!" said Arabella, thoughtfully; "that may be some assumed title of a great man who would fain appear less than he is,--you may be one of those Spanish princes you talk of." "Or his envoy," answered the other. "Hush, hush!" cried the lady in the same tone of raillery, "let me see,--Baron de Mardyke! That, on the contrary, may be a name taken by some lesser man who wishes to seem greater than he is,--you may be a Jesuit in disguise, a disciple of Loyola, or Lainez," and she looked keenly at him as she spoke. There was a slight contraction of the lips, and a passing shade upon the brow of the gentleman whom she addressed; but he replied in an unaltered tone, "You will guess right ere long, madam; for when you have exhausted conjecture, you will come back to simple truth, and leave the Baron de Mardyke just what he was before.--But ere we are interrupted, let me say that I have matter of much importance for your private ear after this meal be over,--secrets of great moment!" "Trust them not to me then!" cried the young lady, "for I have a strange habit of dropping jewels by the way. I never could keep anything that was precious in my life--'tis but yesterday I lost a diamond; and as for secrets, I am so conscious of my carelessness, that I always give them to the next person I meet with, being quite sure that any one will preserve them better than myself."