is almost as flexible, a Phidian goddess is not more perfect in a certain still and stately sort. They have such features as the Dutch painters give to their Madonnas—Lowcountry classic features, regular but round, straight but stolid; and for their depth of expressionless calm, of passionless peace, a polar snow- field could alone offer a type. Women of this order need no ornament, and they seldom wear any: the smooth hair, closely braided, supplies a sufficient contrast to the smoother cheek and brow; the dress cannot be too simple; the rounded arm and perfect neck require neither bracelet nor chain.

With one of these beauties I once had the honour and rapture to be perfectly acquainted. The inert force of the deep, settled love she bore herself was wonderful; it could only be surpassed by her proud impotency to care for any other living thing. Of blood, her cool veins conducted no flow; placid lymph filled and almost obstructed her arteries.

Such a Juno as I have described sat full in our view, a sort of mark for all eyes, and quite conscious that so she was, but proof to the magnetic influence of gaze or glance—cold, rounded, blonde, and beauteous as the white column, capitalled with gilding, which rose at her side.

Observing that Dr. John’s attention was much drawn towards her, I entreated him in a low voice “for the love of Heaven to shield well his heart. You need not fall in love with that lady,” I said, “because, I tell you beforehand, you might die at her feet, and she would not love you again.”

“Very well,” said he; “and how do you know that the spectacle of her grand insensibility might not with me be the strongest stimulus to homage? The sting of desperation is, I think, a wonderful irritant to my emotions; but” (shrugging his shoulders) “you know nothing about these things. I’ll address myself to my mother.—Mamma, I’m in a dangerous way.”

“As if that interested me!” said Mrs. Bretton.

“Alas, the cruelty of my lot!” responded her son. “Never man had a more unsentimental mother than mine. She never seems to think that such a calamity can befall her as a daughter-in-law.”

“If I don’t, it is not for want of having that same calamity held over my head; you have threatened me with it for the last ten years. ‘Mamma, I am going to be married soon!’ was the cry before you were well out of jackets.”

“But, mother, one of these days it will be realized. All of a sudden, when you think you are most secure, I shall go forth, like Jacob or Esau or any other patriarch, and take me a wife, perhaps of these which are of the daughters of the land.”

“At your peril, John Graham! That is all.”

“This mother of mine means me to be an old bachelor. What a jealous old lady it is! But now just look at that splendid creature in the pale blue satin dress, and hair of paler brown, with reflets satinés as those of her robe. Would you not feel proud, mamma, if I were to bring that goddess home some day, and introduce her to you as Mrs. Bretton junior?”

“You will bring no goddess to La Terrasse; that little château will not contain two mistresses, especially if the second be of the height, bulk, and circumference of that mighty doll in wood and wax, and kid and satin.”

“Mamma, she would fill your blue chair so admirably!”

“Fill my chair? I defy the foreign usurper! A rueful chair should it be for her. But hush, John Graham! Hold your tongue, and use your eyes.”

During the above skirmish, the hall, which, I had thought, seemed full at the entrance, continued to admit party after party, until the semicircle before the stage presented one dense mass of heads, sloping from