"She looks just like the heroines in some of the books that Mamma does not let me read and I am obliged to take up to bed with me. Don't you know, Mary--especially the one I lent you--deeply, mysteriously tragic. You remember the one who killed her husband and then went off with the Italian Count; and then with some one else. It was frightfully exciting." "Good gracious! Betty," exclaimed Emily. "How dreadful! You don't think our sister-in-law looks like that?" "I really don't know," said Lady Betty, who was nineteen and wrote lurid melodramas--to the waste of much paper and the despair of her mother. "I don't know. I made one of my heroines in my last play have just those passionate eyes--and she stabbed the villain in the second act!" "Yes, but," said Mary, who felt she must defend Tristram's wife, "Zara isn't in a play and there is no villain, and--why, Betty, no one has tragedies in real life!" Lady Betty tossed her flaxen head, while she announced a prophecy, with an air of deep wisdom which positively frightened the other two girls. "You mark my words, both of you, Emily and Mary--they will have some tragedy before the year is out! And I shall put it all in my next play." And with this fearful threat ringing in their ears Tristram's two sisters walked in a scared fashion to their room. "Betty is wonderful, isn't she, darling?" Mary said. "But, Em, you don't think there is any truth in it, do you? Mother would be so horribly shocked if there was anything like one of Betty's plays in the family, wouldn't she? And Tristram would never allow it either!" "Of course not, you goosie," answered Emily. "But Betty is right in one way--Zara has got a mysterious face, and--and, Mary--Tristram seemed somehow changed, I thought; rather sarcastic once or twice." And then their maid came in and put a stop to their confidences. * * * * * "She is the most wonderful person I have ever met, Ethelrida," Lady Anningford was just then saying, as she and the hostess stopped at her door and let Lady Thornby and the young Countess of Melton go on.--"She is wickedly beautiful and attractive, and there is something odd about her, too, and it touches me; and I don't believe she is really wicked a bit. Her eyes are like storm clouds. I have heard her first husband was a brute. I can't think who told me but it came from some one at one of the Embassies." "We don't know much about her, any of us," Lady Ethelrida said, "but Aunt Jane asked us all in the beginning to trust Tristram's judgment: he is awfully proud, you know. And besides, her uncle, Mr. Markrute, is so nice. But, Anne--" and Lady Ethelrida paused. "Well, what, dear? Tristram is awfully in love with her, isn't he?" Lady Anningford asked. "Yes," said Lady Ethelrida, "but, Anne, do you really think Tristram looks happy? I thought when he was not speaking his face seemed rather sad."