"Is it indeed a mole? I pray your pardon, dearest cousin. But this is very sad! quite a misfortune! Do you not know we all of late express our political opinions after this fashion? You may perceive I always wear a patch on the left side of my chin, to evince my loyalty." "If such be the case, my loyalty is born with me, and cannot cease but with my life!" replied the Countess of Nithsdale, whose feelings were so strong and so devoted she could not jest or banter on the subject. "Treason! treason!" exclaimed the duchess: "we shall have to put you on your trial for still higher crimes and misdemeanours." "A prisoner cannot be tried for two offences at once, and your grace has not brought the first accusation to an end," interposed the Earl of Nithsdale, somewhat anxious to give the conversation another turn. "To tell the honest truth, my lord, I thought the evidence seemed likely to go against myself, and I was not sorry to drop the prosecution. We will let judgment go by default! Is that good law, my Lord Privy Seal, for you should understand these matters?" she continued, turning to her husband with an air of mock solemnity. "You are a mad-cap, Christian!" replied the duke, who, while he half attempted to repress her lively sallies, listened to them with pleased amusement, and, like the mother of a spoiled child, looked round upon the company to see if they also did not applaud her wit and grace. In truth, though she was somewhat the spoiled child of fortune, no one could wish her other than she was. What in another would have been frivolous or impertinent, in her was graceful and most fitting. She was in the vein for playful malice, and with an air of mock penitence replied, "Well, then, my lord, I will be most staid and serious. I will not play one single game at ombre to-night, but I will sit by my gentle cousin's side, and learn of her to ply my needle as good housewives and virtuous matrons should;" and seating herself on a low stool in the window, she fell to sorting and choosing shades of silks, till she had confused and mixed them all. "I must look at you, fair cousin," she added suddenly, "to learn how I should begin;--but methinks you have not chosen your colours with that taste which all admire in whatever else you do. Surely a white rose on that pale blue ground lacks contrast: a red rose, or a tulip, or a peony, would better please the eye; a white rose is, to my mind, but a mean and insipid flower," she added, with a sidelong glance at Lady Nithsdale. "In my eyes it is the fairest flower that blows," replied the countess. "This stool is for my mother; and well may the white rose be dear to the widow, and the daughter, of the Duke of Powis!"