In the meantime, the carriage of Beatrice of Ferrara bore her on with a heart in which sensations as bitter were thronging; though, as we have seen in her conversation with Eugenie de Menancourt, her feelings towards her lover were less keen and scornful than her words might lead him to believe. On the state of her bosom, however, there is no necessity to dwell here, as many an occasion will present itself for explaining it in her own words; and it may be better, also, to let her thus speak for herself, because in endeavouring to depict abstractedly, by means of cold descriptions, that varying and chameleon-like thing, the human heart, one is often led into seeming contradictions, from the infinite variety of hues which it takes, according to the things which surround it. The carriage rolled on and entered the court-yard of the splendid mansion in which she dwelt. Here Beatrice alighted; but she did not go into the house, for a hand-litter or chair,--one of the most ancient of French conveyances,--waited under the archway, as if prepared by her previous order, with its two bearers, and a single armed attendant; and this new conveyance received her as soon as she set foot out of the other. The door was immediately closed, and the blinds, filled with their small squares of painted glass, were drawn up, Beatrice merely saying to the attendant who stood beside her as she shut out the gaze of the passers-by, "To Armandi's!" The bearers instantly lifted their burden, and began their course at the same peculiar trot which has probably been the pace of chair-men in all ages; nor from this did they cease or pause till they reached one of the most showy, if not one of the richest, shops in the city. Standing forth from the building, under a little projecting penthouse, to secure the wares against both sun and rain, was along range of glass cases, containing every sort of cosmetic then in vogue, from the plain essence of violets, wherewith the simple burgher's wife perfumed her robe of ceremony, to the rich ointment compounded from a thousand rare ingredients, wherewith the King himself masked his own effeminate countenance against the night air whilst he slept. Behind these cases was the shop itself, hanging in which might be seen a crowd of various objects for the gratification of vanity and luxury,--the black velvet mask, or loupe, the embroidered and many-coloured gloves, the splendid hair-pins and enamelled clasps, the girdles of gold and silver filigree and precious stones, together with many another part of dress or ornament, some full of grace and taste, some fantastic and absurd, and some scarcely within the bounds of common decency. Beyond the shop, again, but separated from it by a partition of glass, covered in the inside with curtains of crimson silk, was the inner shop, or most private receptacle for all those peculiarly rich or fragile wares which Armandi, the famous perfumer of that day, did not choose to