"Oh! little Mimsey dear, with your poor thin arms round my neck, and your cold, pale cheek against mine. I felt them there only last night! To have grown into such a splendid vision of female health and strength and beauty as this--with that enchanting, ever-ready laugh and smile! Why, of course, those eyes, so lashless then, so thickly fringed to-day!--how could I have mistaken them? Ah, Mimsey, you never smiled or laughed in those days, or I should have known your eyes again! Is it possible--is it possible?" Thus I went on to myself till the ladies left, my fair young companion expressing her kind anxiety and polite hope that I would soon be myself again. I sat silent till it was time to join the ladies (I could not even follow the witty and brilliant anecdotes of the great painter, who held the table); and then I went up to my room. I could not face _her_ again so soon after what I had heard. The good Lord Cray came to make kind inquiries, but I soon satisfied him that my indisposition was nothing. He stayed on, however, and talked; his dinner seemed to have done him a great deal of good, and he wanted to smoke (and somebody to smoke with), which he had not been able to do in the dining-room on account of some reverend old bishop who was present. So he rolled himself a little cigarette, like a Frenchman, and puffed away to his heart's content. He little guessed how his humble architect wished him away, until he began to talk of the Duchess of Towers--"Mary Towers," as he called her--and to tell me how "Towers" deserved to be kicked, and whipped at the cart's tail. "Why, she's the best and most beautiful woman in England, and as sharp as a needle! If it hadn't been for her, he'd have been in the bankruptcy court long ago," etc. "There's not a duchess in England that's fit to hold the candle to her, either for looks or brains, or breedin' either. Her mother (the loveliest woman that ever lived, except Mary) was a connection of mine; that's where she gets her manners!" etc. Thus did this noble earl make music for me--sweet and bitter music. Mary! It is a heavenly name, especially on English lips, and spelled in the English mode with the adorable _y_! Great men have had a passion for it--Byron, Shelley, Burns. But none, methinks, a greater passion than I, nor with such good cause. And yet there must be a bad Mary now and then, here or there, and even an ugly one. Indeed, there was once a Bloody Mary who was both! It seems incredible! Mary, indeed! Why not Hecuba? For what was I to the Duchess of Towers?