"A goddess rather--an Olympian goddess." The languisher could not endure comparisons which so seemed to disparage her ethereal charms.

She lifted the weapon with a great effort, which showed the slimness of her delicate fair wrist and the sweet tracery of blue veins upon it.
"Nay," she said lispingly, "it needs the muscle of a great man to lift it.

I could not hold it--much less beat with it a horse." And to show how coarse a strength was needed and how far her femininity lacked such vigour, she dropped it upon the floor--and it rolled beneath the edge of the divan.
"Now," the thought shot through my lady's brain, as a bolt shoots from the sky--"now--he _laughs_!" She had no time to stir--there were upon their knees three beaux at once, and each would sure have thrust his arm below the seat and rummaged, had not God saved her! Yes, 'twas of God she thought in that terrible mad second--God!--and only a mind that is not human could have told why.
For Anne--poor Mistress Anne--white-faced and shaking, was before them all, and with a strange adroitness stooped,--and thrust her hand below, and drawing the thing forth, held it up to view.
"'Tis here," she said, "and in sooth, sister, I wonder not at its falling--its weight is so great." Clorinda took it from her hand.
"I shall break no more beasts like Devil," she said, "and for quieter ones it weighs too much; I shall lay it by." She crossed the room and laid it upon a shelf.
"It was ever heavy--but for Devil.

'Tis done with," she said; and there came back to her face--which for a second had lost hue--a flood of crimson so glowing, and a smile so strange, that those who looked and heard, said to themselves that 'twas the thought of Osmonde who had so changed her, which made her blush.

But a few moments later they beheld the same glow mount again.