Her above-mentioned pretensions were, fortunately, not borne out by any stigma of masculinity, either physical or mental--unless one could class in the latter category a fixity of purpose, a calm courage, and an inexhaustible fund of dogged endurance; which qualities, either singly or in combination, are wholly foreign to the feminine nature. Extremely lovely still, with her graceful oval face lighted by deep dark-gray eyes, and framed in warm-chestnut hair threaded already with narrow ribbons of clear silver, her short, authoritative nose, her firm, well-arched mouth and obstinate little chin, deft by a characteristic _fossette_, she was what the French graphically call _faite au tour_ (made on a turner’s lathe). She was not tall, but admirably proportioned: slim-waisted, full-hipped, and square-shouldered, and her hands, extraordinarily small, but yet in no way resembling the useless, tapering, monkey-like variety so dear to flashy novelists under the appellation of _mains de Duchesse_, were shaped on an especially artistic model, which showed both character and strength. Her feet followed suit, amusingly high-arched, eminently aristocratic, and yet capable of being stood upon with supple energy, under any and every circumstance, and from her whole being there emanated a vigor, a self-reliance, and a _savoir-faire_ altogether uncommon in these slouchy, spineless, neurasthenic days. Such was the sister-in-law given by a far-seeing Providence to Laurence Seton, Princess Basil Palitzin, and lucky it was for her that this was so, for, to put it mildly, that fair daughter of Albion was just then seriously dismayed by a certain hornet’s nest that she had wilfully broken open. * * * * * After her unwilling and ungracious return from “abroad,” as she distinguished between Russia and other more fortunate European countries, Laurence had consented, not without painfully apparent reluctance, to reintegrate the Castle of Tverna during the hunting and shooting season. Great parties of guests had then filled the place and made life endurable to her for the time being; but when these had departed and she had succeeded in making her husband promise to take her to Petersburg for the winter, a sudden call to the bedside of an aunt who was also his godmother--a relationship very seriously considered in Russia--had forced him to leave in haste just as the first heavy snow was beginning to fall. He had not done so without many qualms of anxiety; for not only did he by now fully realize the unpopularity of his wife on his estates, but also the fact that the peasants’ restlessness was slowly increasing, owing to the scantiness of the last harvest. Every precaution had been taken by him, however, to protect Laurence from any sort of annoyance during an absence that might be prolonged if he found his aged relative in danger; but notwithstanding this he had left Tverna with a heavy heart and an anxious mind.