Into one of the small rooms of this house, at about eleven o’clock at night, I must now introduce the reader.

In that chamber, with her head resting on her hand, her eyes fixed upon a wood-fire that was burning before her, one small and beautiful foot stretched out towards it, while the other was concealed by the drapery of her long robe; and with the whole graceful line of her figure thrown back in the large arm-chair which she occupied—­except, indeed, the head, which was bent slightly forward—­sat a very lovely young woman, perhaps of two or three and twenty years of age, in meditations evidently of a somewhat melancholy cast.  The hand on which her head leaned, and which was very soft, round, and fair, was covered with rings, while the other was quite free from such ornaments, with the exception of one small ring of gold upon the slender third finger.  In that hand she had been holding an open letter; but, buried in meditation, she had suffered the paper to drop from her hold, and it had fallen upon the ground beside her.

We had said that she was very beautiful, but her beauty was of a different sort and character altogether from that of the lady whom we have described under the name of Lady Laura Gaveston.  Her hair was of the richest, brightest, glossy black, as fine as silk, yet bending, wherever it escaped, into rich and massy curls.  There was one of these which fell upon the back of her fair neck, and another upon either temple.  Upon the forehead, as was then customary, the hair was divided into smaller curls, and cut much shorter, which fashion was a great disfigurement to beauty, and certainly left her less handsome than she otherwise would have appeared.  Still, however, she was very, very lovely; and the fine lines of her features, the clear rich brown of her complexion, the glorious light of her large dark eyes, softened by the long thick lashes that overshadowed them, the full and rounded beauty of every limb, left it impossible even for human heart to do away what nature’s cunning hand had done.

There are certainly moments in which, as every one must have remarked, a beautiful human countenance is more beautiful than at any other period, when it acquires, from some accidental circumstance, a temporary and extraordinary degree of loveliness.  Sometimes it is the mere disposition of light and shade that produces this effect—­the background behind it, the objects that surround it.  Sometimes it is that the tone of the mind at the moment gives the peculiar expression which harmonizes best with the lines of the features and the colouring of the complexion, and which is in perfect accord with all those expectations which fine, indistinct, but sweet associations produce in our mind from every particular style of beauty that we see.  Associations are, in fact, the bees of the imagination, and, wandering through all nature, may be said to distil honey from every fair object on which they light.  Why does a rich and warm