Then she laid aside her mirror, and, resting her chin on her hand, gazed into the fire, with an expression of unusual contentment in her dissatisfied dark eyes. Here is an opportunity to sketch Belle’s portrait, as she sits thus staring meditatively into the red turf sods. She inherits her dark eyes, her excitable disposition, and her volcanic spirit, from her grandmother, a French Canadian; and ever since she was a pretty and precocious--though somewhat sallow--infant, she has absolutely ruled her mother, who never attempted to contradict her wishes, nor to restrain her unusually fiery temper. What was amusing petulance at three years of age, was ungovernable passion at--well--twenty-nine. For each disastrous love affair, or social disappointment, had served to increase the force of her most prominent characteristic. She made no effort to control her furies before inferiors, or in the bosom of her family, for she had an idea that, as she was beautiful, she was absolved from being good! Fortunately these domestic tornadoes were of short duration, and, whilst the storm raged (and Belle raved, and stamped, and screamed) all the household bent before it, as reeds in a strong gale. When it passed over, the frantic madwoman of ten minutes previously, having gained her end, was a kissing, weeping, coaxing slave. Mrs. Redmond spoke of these visitations as “attacks on the nerves,” but the servants gave them a totally different interpretation. Belle’s scenes were chiefly enacted for the benefit of the home circle; but now and then there had been disagreeable outbreaks in shops, in boarding-houses, and, above all, at the rehearsals of private theatricals, after which, it had been the painful office of her miserable mother to offer abject apologies, to eat humble pie, and to fly the neighbourhood. Belle was undoubtedly out of her element at Noone, a veritable swan upon a turnpike road. She danced admirably, sang delightful little French songs, and acted with such grace and _verve_ and real dramatic feeling, that spiteful people hinted that she was a professional, whose temper had been the bane of her engagements. But who wanted piquant chansons, or inimitable acting, in dreary Ballingoole? They would have been respectively stigmatised as French trash and tomfoolery; Belle pined for her former nomadic existence, and detested her present respectable anchorage. She loved the town and the gay haunts of fashion; loathed the country, and had a true Frenchwoman’s abhorrence of wet fields, muddy roads, strong boots and draggled petticoats. Although she only understood house-keeping from a lady lodger’s point of view, to wit, hashes, cold mutton, and poached eggs, she nevertheless eagerly seized the reins of government on her arrival at Noone. Her restless spirit and maddening tongue (and, they said, mean ways) soon drove the old servants wild--servants accustomed to unlimited meat, unlimited tea, and unlimited leisure.