“My story,” he addressed us, “concerns a man and a woman. The man loved the woman. I call her a woman because all words are vain, and to call her a goddess were but to lay myself under the charge of affectation. But if I were to tell you her name, which of course I cannot do, except to say that it rhymes with custard, you would instantly agree with the most abandoned epithets for her beauty; for she is one of the best loved ladies in the land, by reason of her high birth, her peerless carriage, and her amazing loveliness. I tell you, she has no rival in the present, nor can history tell us of her like. If the Lady Circe had had golden hair, which I much doubt, perhaps she may have been a tithe as lovely. It is, as you know, said of the Lady Circe that she turned men into swine, but this lady turns swine into men, and what could be more agreeable than that? It was ever her innocent delight to improve the men she met; and, with such beauty, was there anything she could not do with men? Her beauty appals the epithet. She is divinely tall, gold is but brass beside the sheen of her hair, and white samite is grey beside her complexion. She is without doubt the loveliest woman in England--which, of course, also includes America, for all lovely American women live in England even though they may die in Paris. “The man met this lady and instantly loved her. Now his was no casual passion. She was young, but the war had already widowed her; and she seemed not unaware of, nor entirely repelled by, her new suitor’s passion, for from her many suitors she chose him as her constant companion. Thus, rumour very soon came to link their names; and rumour, generally so malignant, was then kind enough to find something harmonious in the alliance of that pair. For he was a man of unusual height, of a good name, a distinguished military record, and looks which some have thought handsome while none have denied to be very properly suited to the requirements of an English gentleman. “She did not, at first, wholly accept him. But no day passed that they did not meet; and, as day exquisitely strung itself to day so that each was another pearl on the necklace of an Olympian goddess, she seemed, by sudden gestures, by sudden impulses, to be growing to love him--she the loveliest lady in the world! And he was happy--Oh, God, he was happy!” The handsome stranger fell silent, and I thought he was about to break down. I filled him a glass of champagne. “Sir,” said he, “your health. And yours, madam.”