Dark, where her companion was fair, and with the glossy texture of her own somber locks showing in the individual roll which ran back into the absurd _fontange_ of false hair and falser powder, Mary Connynge made good foil for her bosom friend; though honesty must admit that neither had yet much concern for foils, since both had their full meed of gallants.

Much seen together, they were commonly known, as the Morning and Eve, sometimes as Aurora and Eve.

Never did daughter of the original Eve have deeper feminine guile than Mary Connynge.

Soft of speech--as her friend, the Lady Catharine, was impulsive,--slow, suave, amber-eyed and innocent of visage, this young English woman, with no dower save that of beauty and of wit, had not failed of a sensation at the capital whither she had come as guest of the Lady Catharine.

Three captains and a squire, to say nothing of a gouty colonel, had already fallen victims, and had heard their fate in her low, soft tones, which could whisper a fashionable oath in the accent of a hymn, and say "no" so sweetly that one could only beg to hear the word again.