After affectionately embracing her, Lady Davenant held her at arms’ length, and looked at her as the light of the lamp shone full upon her face and figure. Pleased with her whole appearance, Lady Davenant smiled, and said, as she looked at her--“You seem, Helen, to have shared the grateful old fairy’s gift to Lady Georgiana B. of the never-fading rose in the cheek. But what particularly pleases me, Helen, is the perfect simplicity of your dress. In the few minutes that I was in the ball-room to-night, I was struck with that over-dressed duchess: her figure has been before my eyes ever since, hung round with jewellery, and with that _auréole_ a foot and a-half high on her head: like the Russian bride’s headgear, which Heber so well called ‘the most costly deformity he ever beheld.’ Really, this passion for baubles,” continued Lady Davenant, “is the universal passion of our sex. I will give you an instance to what extravagance it goes. I know a lady of high rank, who hires a certain pair of emerald earrings at fifteen hundred pounds per annum. She rents them in this way from some German countess in whose family they are an heir-loom, and cannot be sold.” Helen expressed her astonishment. “This is only one instance, my dear; I could give you hundreds. Over the whole world, women of all ages, all ranks, all conditions, have been seized with this bauble insanity--from the counter to the throne. Think of Marie Antoinette and the story of her necklace; and Josephine and her Cisalpine pearls, and all the falsehoods she told about them to the emperor she reverenced, the husband she loved--and all for what?--a string of beads! But I forget,” cried Lady Davenant, interrupting herself, “I must not forget how late it is: and I am keeping you up, and you have been dancing: forgive me! When once my mind is moved, I forget all hours. Good night--or good morning, my dear child; go, and rest.” But just as Helen was withdrawing her hand, Lady Davenant’s eye fixed on her pearl bracelets--“Roman pearls, or real? Real, I see, and very valuable!--given to you, I suppose, by your poor dear extravagant uncle?” Helen cleared her uncle’s memory from this imputation, and explained that the bracelets were a present from General Clarendon. She did not know they were so “very valuable,” but she hoped she had not done wrong to accept of them in the circumstances; and she told how she had been induced to take them.