Madame Grisi sang again--Desdemona's song from _Othello_--and the beautiful lady thanked the divine singer, whom she seemed to know quite intimately; and I thought her thanks--Italian thanks--even diviner than the song--not that I could quite understand them or even hear them well--I was too far; but she thanked with eyes and hands and shoulders-- slight, happy movements--as well as words; surely the sweetest and sincerest words ever spoken. She was much surrounded and made up to--evidently a person of great importance; and I ventured to ask another shy man standing in my corner who she was, and he answered-- "The Duchess of Towers." She did not stay long, and when she departed all turned dull and commonplace that had seemed so bright before she came; and seeing that it was not necessary to bid my hostess good-night and thank her for a pleasant evening, as we did in Pentonville, I got myself out of the house and walked back to my lodgings an altered man. I should probably never meet that lovely young duchess again, and certainly never know her; but her shaft had gone straight and true into my very heart, and I felt how well barbed it was, beyond all possibility of its ever being torn out of that blessed wound; might this never heal; might it bleed on forever! She would be an ideal in my lonely life, to live up to in thought and word and deed. An instinct which I felt to be infallible told me she was as good as she was fair-- _"Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love."_ [Illustration: THE DUCHESS OP TOWERS.] And just as Madame Seraskier's image was fading away, this new star had arisen to guide me by its light, though seen but for a moment; breaking once, through a parted cloud, I knew in which portion of the heavens it dwelt and shone apart, among the fairest constellations; and ever after turned my face that way. Nevermore in my life would I do or say or think a mean thing, or an impure, or an unkind one, if I could help it. * * * * * Next day, as we walked to the Foundling Hospital for divine service, Mrs. Lintot severely deigned--under protest, as it were--to cross-examine me on the adventures of the evening. I did not mention the Duchess of Towers, nor was I able to describe the different ladies' dresses; but I described everything else in a manner I thought calculated to interest her deeply--the flowers, the splendid pictures and curtains and cabinets, the beautiful music, the many lords and ladies gay. She disapproved of them all. Existence on such an opulent scale was unconducive to any qualities of real sterling value, either moral or intellectual. Give _her_, for one, plain living and high thinking! "By-the-way," she asked, "what kind of supper did they give you? Something extremely _recherche_, I have no doubt. Ortolans, nightingales' tongues, pearls dissolved in wine?"