I have seen the lady´s portrait painted but a few years after the events here narrated, and I say in all soberness that I do not wonder at her power. Of her mere beauty I can give no just description, but to my mind her chief charm lay in her eyes, the expression of which the painter--a Fleming, whose name has escaped my memory--had caught with marvellous fidelity. Full of pride and stateliness, they were yet prone to light up with tenderness and playful humour, to which her lips gave just and fitting emphasis. Had I not already known something of her life I should yet have willingly taken her for a heroine. And yet the contemplation of that sweet face saddened me beyond expression. Hanging there among the portraits of forgotten statesmen, and old-world soldiers who fought at Ramillies and Oudenarde, the presentment of that young and smiling face, so full of tender light and gracious sweetness, looked out of the past with pathetic warning that all things have the same fate and must go the same inevitable way. In this little comedy it must not be supposed she was altogether acting a part, or that in anything she said or did she was inspired by any other feeling than friendliness, and it may be the frolicsome humour, that was in her a characteristic trait. From time to time she looked up archly at Colonel Sarsfield who stood smiling by the window, and then resumed her conversation with increased sprightliness. “I never understand women, my dear,” Luttrel said. “And you never will, sir, for we do not understand ourselves. I think you have never been married?” “The Lord be praised for all His mercies, that blessing is still a long way before me. I mean, my dear young lady, no offence to you, but my brother Phil married and saved the rest of the family.” “With Colonel Luttrel´s permission we will draw a veil over his family history.” “´Tis mighty well,” said the other; “commissary-general to a ragged army of fifteen, and his wife still a rare recruiting sergeant.” So saying he took his place stiffly behind his chair, waiting till Dorothy was seated at the supper table. “And I hope,” he growled, looking askance at Gervase, “that this person is of fit condition to sit at the table with people of quality.” “Of that matter, sir,” said Sarsfield, “I am perhaps the best judge. Mr. Orme, will you do me the favour to take this chair beside me? I remember when I was of your age I did not require much invitation after a long day. You will tell Miss Carew that soldiers´ fare is ever of the plainest. And as far as prudence and honour will permit, I should like to hear something of your journeying, which seems to have been of the strangest, or so this fair advocate would have me believe.”