As I went on to tell how generous the Senator is, and how certain he would be to lavish wealth upon his daughter-in-law, I could see her mind at work. A fascinating, naughty, treacherous little mind it is--like a small Swiss watch of the rarest workmanship and full of wheels within wheels. And she's a beautiful little creature, as warm as a tropical sun to look at, and about as cold as the Arctic regions to deal with. No, I haven't begun to describe her. I'd not be surprised to hear that she had eloped with her brother-in-law's coachman; nor should I be surprised to hear that she had married the most hideous, revolting man in the world for his money, and was suspected of being engaged in trying to hasten him off to the grave. She's of the queer sort that would kiss or kill with equal enthusiasm, capable of almost any virtue or vice--on impulse. If there's any part of her beneath the impulsive part it's solid ice in a frame of steel. But--is there? She's talked about a good deal--not a tenth enough to satisfy her craving for notoriety, and, I may add, not a tenth part so much as she deserves to be, and would be if we studied character on this side of the water instead of being too busy with ourselves to look beyond anybody else's surface. Well, the Baroness Nadeshda has been wild about the Burkes ever since we had our talk. And she has Mr. Cyrus thoroughly tangled in her nets, and the Senator, too. And, naturally, she lost no time in trying to "do" me. She has told Bucyrus what a designing creature I am--no doubt has warned him that if I seem distant to him I'm at my deadliest, and to look out for mines. He certainly is looking out for them, for, whenever I speak to him, he acts as if he were stepping round on a volcano. I'm having a good deal of fun with him. I wish I had the time; I'd try to teach him a very valuable lesson. Really, it's a shame to let a man go through life imagining that he's an all-conqueror, when in reality the woman who marries him will feel that she's swallowing about as bitter a dose as Fate ever presented to feminine lips in a gold spoon. Dear old "ma" Burke hasn't yet yielded to Nadeshda's blandishments. We went to the embassy to call yesterday afternoon at tea-time, and I saw her watching Nadeshda in that smiling, simple way of hers that conceals about as keen a brain as I shouldn't care to have tearing me to pieces for inspection.