LADY FREDERICK (laughing).--"No danger for him there--as yet at least. Lady Mary (the Duke of Knaresborough's daughter) is only in her second year. The first year, nothing under an earl; the second, nothing under a baron. It will be full four years before she comes down to a commoner. Mr. Hazeldean's danger is of another kind. He lives much with men who are not exactly _mauvais ton_, but certainly not of the best taste. Yet he is very young; he may extricate himself--leaving half his fortune behind him. What, he nods to you! You know him?" "Very well; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton." "Indeed. I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new name in London. I heard his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but not that he was related to Mr. Egerton." "Half-brother." "Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts? He has no sons himself." RANDAL.--"Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, from my family--from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean." Lady Frederick turned sharply, looked at Randal's countenance with more attention than she had yet vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of the Leslies. Randal was very short there. An hour afterward, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the refreshment room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him. He was talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there entered a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed through the room as she appeared. She might be three or four-and-twenty. She was dressed in black velvet, which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat and the clear paleness of her complexion, while it set off the diamonds with which she was profusely covered. Her hair was of the deepest jet, and worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and brilliant, her features regular and striking; but their expression, when in repose, was not prepossessing to such as love modesty and softness in the looks of woman. But when she spoke and smiled, there was so much spirit and vivacity in the countenance, so much fascination in the smile, that all which might before have marred the effect of her beauty, strangely and suddenly disappeared. "Who is that very handsome woman?" asked Randal. "An Italian--a Marchesa something," said one of the Etonians. "Di Negra," suggested another who had been abroad; "she is a widow; her husband was of the Genoese family of Negra--a younger branch of it." Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Italian. A few ladies of the highest rank spoke to her, but with a more distant courtesy than ladies of high rank usually show to foreigners of such quality as Madame di Negra. Ladies of a rank less elevated seemed rather shy of her;--that might be from jealousy. As Randal gazed at the Marchesa with more admiration than any woman, perhaps, had before excited in him, he heard a voice near him say-- "Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle among us, and marry an Englishman."