’But Mirelle, my dear Mirelle! You look like a ghost, all in white. Not a particle of colour! It does not suit you; you are so pale. Good heavens! let me look at your hands.’ Orange took the long narrow fingers in hers, and held the delicate hand before the candle. It was transparent, and thus only did it show a rosy red. ’Unless I had seen it, I would not have believed that there was blood in you,’ said Orange; and then she glanced at herself proudly in the cheval glass. ’Do look at me, Mirelle. I am glowing with life. See my lips, my cheeks—how warm they are! My eyes flicker, whereas you are as though spun out of moonshine. There is not the faintest rose in your cheek, and your lips alone show the least tinge of life. Your eyes have no sparkle in them; they are dark pools in which nothing lives. I wish you would stand between me and the lamp; I believe I should see the light through you. Whoever saw flesh like yours? It is not flesh, it is wax. You must paint. You are unendurable like this—like a corpse of a bride risen from her coffin come to haunt the living.’ ’I shall put on my diamonds,’ said Mirelle. ’What diamonds?’ ’My mother’s.’ ’I did not know you had them.’ ’Yes, I kept them with my own things, in my own box. When my mother died they were committed to me.’ ’You cannot wear diamonds; a girl in England does not put on jewelry.’ ’I am going to wear them.’ Then Mirelle opened a little case, and drew from it a coronet and a necklace of diamonds. ’Fasten the crown about my head,’ she said; ’I can put the necklace on myself.’ Orange stepped back in astonishment. She had never seen anything so beautiful. ’Why, Mirelle, they must be very valuable. How they twinkle, how they will sparkle downstairs among the many lights.’ Then with a touch of malice, ’What will Captain Trecarrel think? Now you look like a queen of the fairies. He will fairly lose his heart to you to-night.’ She saw a spot of colour come into each cheek. It angered her, and she went on with bitterness in her soul, ’You know that you belong to his class; and he will think so as well to-night. I suppose he and you will despise us humble folk who have to do with trade and business, and you will have eyes only for each other. What a couple you will make, side by side, he with his aristocratic air, and you bejewelled like a princess!’ She looked at herself in the glass and then at Mirelle, and was reassured. No comparison could be drawn between them. She, Orange, was splendid. She wore pink with carnation ribands, and a red rose in her hair, another in her bosom. Her dark and abundant hair and her large dark eyes looked well, set in red. The colour in her cheeks was heightened. Her bosom heaved, she had a fine bust and throat, and her features were handsome. There was life, love, heat in her. Who could care for a snowdrift—nay, for a frozen fog, though it sparkled?