She lay with her arm resting on a pillow, and her ears attentively listening to every cabriolet that passed, eagerly anticipating a visit from Lord Albert. She twice looked at her watch; once she struck it, to know if its sound answered to the hour its hand designated.--"Surely," she said, with some impatience, "he must at least inquire for me?--and it is late--late for a person of Lord Albert's early habit--it is really three o'clock." At that moment a short decided knock at the door roused her attention. Her hand was on the bell in an instant, lest the servants might deny her--but in another the door opened, and _not_ Lord Albert, but the pale and melancholy Frank Ombre entered. The revulsion from pleasure to disappointment occasioned by the appearance of this visitor, and which displayed itself in Lady Hamlet Vernon's features, was ingeniously ascribed by her to a sudden pain in her head, the consequence, she said, of her accident the preceding night; which accident she hastened to detail, and was gratified by the homage of regrets, most poetically expressed by Mr. Ombre, who remarked that the danger of this occurrence was transferred from herself to her admirers. "The beautiful languor which it has cast over your person has produced a varied charm more inimical to our peace than even the lightning of your eyes. What a fortunate man that Lord Albert was, to be on the very spot to render you assistance! There are some persons, as we all know, who are born felicitous--they please without caring to please; they render services without thinking what they are doing, or even being interested in reality about the persons whom they serve; they are reckoned handsome without one regularly beautiful feature, and pronounced clever, superior, talented, without ever doing any thing to prove it. But in that, perhaps, lies their wisdom--one may be _every thing_ so long as one never proves one's-self _nothing_." "True, there are such people in the world, I believe; but do you really mean to say"--(and she almost blushed.) "I never mean, or can mean, to say any thing that is disagreeable to you".... "Oh, it is not I who am interested in what he _is_, or is _not_; but, to confess the truth, a very dear friend of mine, a charming young person, takes an interest in him, and I should like to know if he is worthy of that interest before her affections are further engaged." "Ah! my dear Lady Hamlet Vernon," replied Mr. Ombre, "there is nobody like you--I always said so. You know _I never flatter_; but you are so disinterested, always thinking about other people, always so kindly busy where you can be of any use; so unlike the world in general, in short, that it quite spoils one for living in it." "Well, this is a point we shall not dispute about, my dear Mr. Ombre, only tell me what you know of Lord Albert D'Esterre? what are his tastes, his habits, his pursuits, his politics?"