Suddenly the Countess recognised Phœbe, Arthur Phillips and the bailiff sitting close by. She rose instantly, advanced towards them, and the next moment had kissed her friend with a heartiness that made the tears come into Phœbe’s eyes, and quite electrified everybody. Who was the lady whom she had kissed? Everybody asked everybody else, and nobody knew. Who was that strange looking little man with long black hair? And who was that fine-looking country gentleman? Nobody knew, and everybody made a guess in reply, so that there was quite a buzz of conversation. Then the Mayor introduced the aldermen, who had all promised to introduce their wives and didn’t; then the Mayoress was introduced, and the Countess shook hands with her, and so did the Earl; whereupon several friends of the chief magistrate’s wife said the Mayoress was “stuck up,” and a score of other ladies said the whole affair was a perfect farce, and they certainly would not have sanctioned it if they had known there was going to be so much nonsense. Who was the Countess, they would like to know? Nobody but a merchant’s daughter, and her husband old enough to be her father. And who was the Mayoress?--a seedsman’s wife,--and what a bonnet! It was a pity people should make themselves so ridiculous! And the Countess too; there were women in the room quite as handsome and quite as graceful. Fine feathers made fine birds! The Countess might fairly have disputed the prize for beauty with all Severnshire, nevertheless; her chiefest competitor, to our mind, would have been the artist’s _fiancée_, but the two styles of beauty were entirely different, as our readers know. It was not long ere the Town-clerk had read the civic address, and the various presents were made. The Earl replied in a manner that promised all the old borough hoped for with regard to the future; whilst the Countess said a few words of thankfulness, which were so gracious, so sweet, so becoming, so perfectly modest, that even the ladies who had been excluded from the committee aforesaid could not resist joining in the general expressions of approval.