it." And, hastily closing the door, he passed into a _salon_ luxuriantly furnished. In a moment more, Lady Dora entered in all the pride of her glowing, majestic beauty, set off to greater advantage by her mourning robes, which floated in mockery of woe around her--Lady Ripley accompanied her. How false some positions are, in what's called society! Here were three persons, nearly allied, meeting as mere strangers, almost in coldness, without an allusion even to the past. Lady Ripley was gracious; her daughter strove by an unconstrained cordiality, where pride towered in majestic condescension, to seem perfectly indifferent, though Tremenhere smiled in his heart, as he read her well--his manner was so free from any significance of tone or look, so calm and unembarrassed, that Lady Dora asked herself involuntarily, "Have I dreamed the past of yesterday?" and she felt humbled on reflecting how weary an hour she had passed that morning, in schooling her looks and heart to meet, without betraying herself to him. "You will scarcely pardon me, I fear," he said, "when I tell you, Lady Dora, that I had totally forgotten this engagement this morning, and was going to pass a morning at the Louvre." "Oh, pray, do not let us detain you, Mr. Tremenhere!" she exclaimed haughtily. "I, too, had other engagements, but mamma wished me to come, having promised." "You cannot doubt, Lady Dora," he gallantly said--but it was mere gallantry; no hidden tone of meaning could be detected by the nicest ear--"the great pleasure this remembrance gives me. I was blaming my own wretched memory, and anxious to convey to you the forgotten happiness, which was driving me for a morning's amusement among the dead beauties in the Spanish gallery, instead of immortalizing my pencil, by endeavouring to pourtray your living loveliness." She bowed, and, biting her lip, accepted this overstrained compliment at its full value--empty as the wind; and in this mood she sat down to lend herself to his pencil. Lady Ripley had not noticed the by-play of all this, indeed how could she, ignorant as she was of the previous scene, and totally incapable of comprehending the possibility of _her_ daughter, even condescending to the slightest approach to flirtation even with an artist, whatever his pretensions to birth might be? She was unusually gracious this day, which removed much of the embarrassment the others could not otherwise have failed to feel. As some little revenge for his cool impertinence when they entered, Lady Dora suddenly inquired-- "Mr. Tremenhere, how many days' journey do you reckon it from Paris to Florence? I mean," she added, fearful that her meaning might be misunderstood, "from Florence to Paris, supposing a person to travel as expeditiously as possible?" "As many," he answered, smiling blandly in her face, and with perfect sincerity of tone, "as it would take a person to go from Paris to Florence."