(Aurora took pains to explain that she received these minutiae from Palmyre herself in later years.) One other member of the group was a young don of some twenty years' age, not an inmate of the house, but only a cousin of Aurora on her deceased mother's side.

To make the affair complete, and as a seal to this tacit Grandissime-de-Grapion treaty, this sole available representative of the "other side" was made a guest for the evening.

Like the true Spaniard that he was, Don Jose Martinez fell deeply in love with Honore's sister.
Then there came Agricola leading in Palmyre.

There were others, for the Grandissime mansion was always full of Grandissimes; but this was the central group.
In this house Palmyre grew to womanhood, retaining without interruption the place into which she seemed to enter by right of indisputable superiority over all competitors,--the place of favorite attendant to the sister of Honore.

Attendant, we say, for servant she never seemed.
She grew tall, arrowy, lithe, imperial, diligent, neat, thorough, silent.