It was that test of the presents which first proved Ginevra mortal.

Still her beauty retained its fascination: three days--three hours ago, I was very much her slave.

As she passed me to-night, triumphant in beauty, my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I should yet be the humblest of her servants.

She might have scoffed at _me_, and, while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me: through myself, she could not in ten years have done what, in a moment, she has done through my mother." He held his peace awhile.

Never before had I seen so much fire, and so little sunshine in Dr.John's blue eye as just now.
"Lucy," he recommenced, "look well at my mother, and say, without fear or favour, in what light she now appears to you." "As she always does--an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well, though gravely dressed, habitually independent of pretence, constitutionally composed and cheerful." "So she seems to me--bless her! The merry may laugh _with_ mamma, but the weak only will laugh _at_ her.