On her hands and bosom a number of fine emeralds flashed, for events had shown in the end that the impecunious young lover was not fated to dabble in stocks in vain.
"Oh Angela, my poor dear, how are you ?" she enquired.
Angela released herself with a shrinking gesture and, turning away, sat down at the foot of the long couch.

"I am the same--always the same," she answered in her cold, reserved voice.
"You took your fresh air to-day, I hope ?" "I went down in the yard as usual.

Laura," she looked desperately around, "is that Rosa who has just come in ?" As she paused a knock came at the door, and Laura opened it to admit Mrs.Payne--the eldest, the richest and the most eccentric of the sisters.
From a long and varied association with men and manners Mrs.Payne had gathered a certain halo of experience, as of one who had ripened from mere acquaintance into a degree of positive intimacy with the world.

She had seen it up and down from all sides, had turned it critically about for her half-humorous, half-sentimental inspection, and the frank cynicism which now flavoured her candid criticism of life only added the spice of personality to her original distinction of adventure.

As the wife of an Ambassador to France in the time of the gay Eugenie, and again as one of the diplomatic circle in Cairo and in Constantinople, she had stored her mind with precious anecdotes much as a squirrel stores a hollow in his tree with nuts.