The Duchess curtseyed imperceptibly, ’tis so difficult to divest the mind of the prejudices of rank, and then came forward smiling to the shrinking girl—too terrified almost to remember her manners. “You’ll pardon me Mrs. Beswick (Diana started back), and the liberty I take when I say I have the good fortune to know some matters relating to your respectable father and his gallantry that saved Mr. Francis Hyde’s life. His daughter hath not forgot that circumstance, I dare swear!” ’Twas kindly and graciously said, and Diana lifted an April face and curtseyed lower. “Indeed, your Grace, I have not. I have the watch now. Is the gentleman of your Grace’s family?” “So much so that I take it as a debt to be repaid to your father’s daughter, Madam. And I am now to request that in this unforeseen difficulty just arisen you’ll favour me with your company here for as long as is convenient to yourself.” “But, Madam—Your Grace—The playhouse hours, the rehearsals! I’m overwhelmed with your goodness but know myself a very inconvenient guest.” “That shall be my care, not yours, Mrs. Diana,” says the Duchess, laughing her charmingest. She laughed with a gusto, this lady, that carried all with her, and Diana looked at her, amazed and comforted by the condescension and obligingness of so great a person. She was bewildered indeed. To be rescued from all her perplexities and griefs, and carried off thus suddenly into what appeared to be a heaven of gentle voices and kind looks and beauty, was more like a dream than any waking occurrence in her short and somewhat sad life. “I have no words—no none—with which to thank you, Madam, but indeed I vow that my conduct shall be answerable to my gratitude and that your Grace shall have no cause to regret your condescension.” “Child, I look in your fair eyes and have no fear. I see in them the mirror of a candid soul!” cries the Duchess, too beautiful herself to disparage the beauty of others. This lady had the frankness of a man rather than the finesse of a woman and spoke her thoughts with a candour sometimes charming, sometimes embarrassing in a high degree, but always her own. She added now: “And indeed your looks are such that you need a shepherdess to keep so pretty a lamb in the right pasture. There are wolves about, child, and some of them in sheep’s clothing. Doubtless you know this already?”