"Easily. Ask a Chinese his idea of loveliness, and he will tell you, a woman with her eyebrows plucked out, the lids painted, her teeth blackened, and her feet shapeless; and what does the cynical Voltaire say?--'Ask a toad what is beauty, the supremely beautiful, and he will answer you, it is his female, with two round eyes projecting out of its little head, a broad flat neck, a yellow breast, and dark-brown back.' Even red hair is thought lovely by some; and did not Duke Philip the Good institute the order of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy in honour of a damsel whose hair was as yellow as saffron; and now, Harry Hardinge, what is _your_ idea?" "Can you ask me?" I exclaimed, with something of ardour, for she looked so laughingly bright and intelligent as she spoke; then divining that I was thinking of another, not of her, "for there is a thread in our thoughts even as there is a pulse in our hearts, and he who can hold the one knows how to think, and he who can move the other knows how to feel," she said, with a point scarcely meant. "The eye may be pleased, the vanity flattered, and ambition excited by a woman of beauty, especially if she is one of rank; yet the heart may be won by one her inferior. Talking of beauty, Lady Naseby has striven hard to get the young earl, her nephew, to marry our friend, Lady Estelle." "Would she have him?" I asked, while my cheek grew hot. "I cannot say--but he declined," replied Winifred, pressing a wild rose to her nostrils. "Declined--impossible!" "Why impossible? But in her fiery pride Estelle will never, never forgive him; though he was already engaged to one whom he, then at least, loved well." "Ah--the Irish girl, I suppose?" "Yes," said Winifred, with a short little sigh, as she looked down. "Such a girl as Estelle Cressingham must always find admirers." "Hundreds; but as the estates, like the title, have passed to the next male heir, and Lady Naseby has only a life-rent of the jointure house in Hants--Walcot Park, a lovely place--she is anxious that her daughter should make a most suitable marriage." "Which means lots of tin, I suppose?" said I, sourly. "Exactly," responded Winifred, determined, perhaps, if I had the bad taste to speak so much of Estelle, to say unpleasant things; "and the favoured _parti_ at present is Viscount Pottersleigh, who comes here to-morrow, as his letter informed her." "Old Pottersleigh is sixty if he is a day!" said I, emphatically. "What has age to do with the matter in view? Money and position are preferable to all fancies of the heart, I fear." "Nay, nay, Winifred, you belie yourself and Lady Estelle too; love is before everything!"