Hamilton assured her he felt extremely obliged—hoped, however, to prove that he had a better claim to her notice than his being an Englishman. This she did not comprehend, for, like most Germans who are learning English, she seldom understood when spoken to, and preferred continuing to talk herself to waiting or asking for an answer in a language which she knew by sight but not by sound. Accordingly, “We have a very fine nature here!” was the reply he received to an observation which he had intended to have led to an interesting discovery of his being the son of her Munich correspondent. “We have a very fine nature here!” Hamilton looked puzzled, or she thought him a little deaf, for she spoke louder as she said, “A very beautiful nature!” He bowed, and coloured slightly. “Mamma will say, our prospects are very good,” said the younger lady, in explanation. “Ha!—prospects!” he repeated. “What you call lanskip—_paysage_? Is not good English? No?” “Oh, very good English,” he answered, looking round him, prepared to admire anything or everything he could see. Now, they were in an arbour thickly covered with foliage in order to render it impervious to the sun’s rays, and the entrance being from the garden, there was no view whatever deserving the name of prospect. Hamilton knew not what to say, and was beginning to feel embarrassed, when the Rosenbergs luckily appeared and made a diversion in his favour. Crescenz and her sister advanced to meet their step-mother, who now entered the garden dressed in a most unbecoming dark-coloured cotton morning-gown partly covered by an old shawl thrown negligently over her shoulders, and her hair still twisted round those odious leather things used for curling refractory ringlets. “Who is that?” asked the Countess, to his great relief speaking German. “Who is that person?” “I believe her name is Rosenberg,” he answered; “she came from Munich yesterday.” “Ah, I know. That is the person who screamed in the gallery last night.” “No, mamma, it was one of her daughters who screamed.” “Oh, one of her daughters! They are very pretty,” said the Countess, raising her double _lorgnette_ to her eyes—“really very pretty! and I think I have seen them somewhere before, but where I cannot recollect——” “Oh, mamma, I know where you have seen them; they were in the same school with my cousin Thérèse, and we saw them at the examinations last year. Don’t you remember the two sisters who were so like each other? And as we drove home with the Princess N——, she said that one of them was the handsomest creature she had ever seen! I think, too, she said she had known their mother!” “Not that person in the odious dishabille! You are dreaming, child!”