Lady Mitford was alone on the afternoon of the following day, when Sir Laurence Alsager was announced. She was often alone now; for the world falls readily and easily away, not only from the forsaken, but from the preoccupied--from those to whom its gaieties are childish follies and its interests weariness. She had fallen out of the ranks, as much through inclination as in compliance with the etiquette of mourning; and it came to pass often that the afternoon hours found her, as on this occasion, sitting alone in her splendid, vapid, faultless, soulless home. The softened light which reached her stately figure and irradiated her thoughtful lace showed the grace and loveliness which distinguished her untouched, undimmed. Under the discipline of sorrow, under the teaching of disappointment, her face had gained in expression and dignity,--every line and curve had strength added to its former sweetness; the pure steadfast eyes shone with deeper, more translucent lustre, and the rich lips met each other with firmer purpose and more precision. The perfecting, the refinement of her beauty, were sensibly felt by Alsager as he advanced towards the end of the room where she was seated in the recess between a large window and a glittering fireplace. She sat in a deep low chair of purple velvet; and as she leaned slightly forward and looked at him coming rapidly towards her, his eye noted every detail of the picture. He saw the glossy hair in its smooth classic bandeaux, the steadfast eyes, the gracious, somewhat grave, smile, the graceful figure in its soft robe of thick mourning silk, and its rich jet trimmings; he saw the small white hands, gentle but not weak,--one extended towards him in welcome, the other loosely holding an open book. In a minute he was by her side and speaking to her; but that minute had a deathless memory,--that picture he was to see again and again, in many a place, at many a time and it was never to be less beautiful, less divine for him. He loved her--ay, he loved her--this injured woman, this neglected, outraged wife, this woman who was a victim, crushed under the wheels of the triumphal car which had maimed him once on a time, though only slightly, and by a hurt soon healed by the balsam of contempt. Was she crushed, though? There was sorrow in that grand face--indeed, to that look of sorrow it owed its grandeur,--but there was no pining; there was sad experience, but no weak vain retrospection. All the pain of her lot was written upon her face; but none could read there a trace of what would have been its mortification, its bitter humiliation to commoner and coarser minds. It mattered nothing to her that her husband's infatuation and their mutual estrangement were topics for comment to be treated in the style current in society, and she herself an object of that kind of compassion which is so hard to brook: these were small things, too small for her range of vision; she did not see them--did not feel them.