Manhood distinguishes what flatters it.

A lady approaches.

'We must be proper,' says the Countess, and her hearty laugh dies with suddenness and is succeeded by the maturest gravity.

And the Countess can look a profound merriment with perfect sedateness when there appears to be an equivoque in company.

Finely secret are her glances, as if under every eye-lash there lurked the shade of a meaning.