“ James's Hall that I first saw Dove Anerley; and while the people sang "Athalie," I sate and wondered what was the story written on that beautiful, almost sad face. It was one of those rare faces which tantalize you in the very act of admiring them. There was nothing in it of that mature, vigorous, definite beauty of form and complexion which a man may calmly observe and criticise in the face of a woman; but a tender uncertainty, a half-suggested and shrinking loveliness, which made one vaguely conscious that this frail and beautiful smile of nature might suddenly vanish from the fine features. ”

“ Dove was now forced to explain herself.
"I don't, indeed," she said. "But I couldn't help thinking that you are too young and—and too pretty—to waste all your life in a theatre."
"Oh, nonsense," said Miss Brunel, laughing in a motherly sort of way. "I live only in the theatre. I find my life wasted whenever I go out of it, and spend my time in amusing myself like a child. I have nothing to interest me but the theatre; nothing to live for out of it; and it is only when I get into the spirit of my part that I feel myself all throbbing over with a delicious life. ”

“ The drive had commenced. Count Schönstein began to tremble; his heart went faster and faster, as his excited brain peopled all the dim vistas of the trees with living forms. He could scarcely breathe with absolute fear. Again and again he looked at his triggers, and the hammers, and the little spikes of brass which he hoped would strike death into the ribs of some splendid buck. He began to assure himself that he could not tell a buck from a doe if the animal ran quickly; that he must shoot at once, and trust to Providence keeping the tender feminine members of the herd out of the way. ”

“ A night at the theatre was not a pleasure to Harry Ormond. He left so maddened by love and jealousy that he became a joke to his companions—behind his back, be it understood, for he had a quick temper and a sure eye with which the wits did not care to trifle. He was not a man to be provoked or thwarted lightly; and in this period of contrariety, disquietude, and gusty passion, which falls, in some measure or other, to the lot of most young men, a discreet avoidance of irritating topics was the course which wisdom dictated to Lord Knottingley's friends. ”

“ Here it is, Dove—everything we want; and we can go, whenever you brighten up and get strong enough to move."
"But where did you get the money, papa?"
"God must have looked at your face, my darling, and seen that you wanted to go to St. Mary-Kirby."
"And you have plenty of money, papa, to spend on anything?"
All his ordinary prudence forsook him. Even without that guarantee of the bank-note, he would at once have believed in the genuineness of the letter, so eager was he to believe it for Dove's dear sake.
"Plenty of money, Dove? Yes. But not to spend on anything. Only to spend on you." ”

“ This was the Count's great joke: it had never been known to fail—at least in rendering Dove very uncomfortable.
"What a fine evening! Look how beautiful the trees are down there!" he continued, allowing his eye to roam over the prospect before him in innocent pride—looking, indeed, as if he thought that God had prepared the sunset simply to light up Count Schönstein's park.
"It is a fine park; and a beautiful evening, too," said Mr. Anerley. "It is a pity that most beautiful things make one sad." ”

“ Rhetorical threats of damnation passed lightly over her; indeed, you cannot easily persuade a woman that the lover of her youth has any cause to fear eternal punishment; but a far less sensitive woman than Mrs. Anerley might well have been saddened by that incomprehensible barrier which existed between her and her husband.
"And it is only on this one point," she thought to herself, bitterly. "Was there ever such a husband as he is—so forbearing, and kind, and generous? Was there ever such a father as he has shown himself to be, both to Will and to this poor Dove? ”

“ Finally, as the path became a track, grass-grown and rocky, they arrived at a square grey building, with a small garden attached, which stood on the summit of the shoulder of the hill.
"It is the Feldberg Inn," said Grete.
"Is it pleasant to live on the top of the mountain?" asked her companion.
"Oh, yes, mademoiselle; only it is a little cold. And when you look out at night—in the moonlight—it frightens one; for all the house seems surrounded by a yellow mist, which floats about and makes figures, and then it sweeps away, and you see the garden sharp and clear. ”

“ There are ghastly dreams in which the sleeper, gazing on a broad and sunny landscape, suddenly becomes conscious of a cold and terrible pressure, and lifting up his eyes sees a broad cloth, white and black like a funeral pall, descending slowly from the sky, and shutting out the glad sunlight, and gliding down upon the earth. All living things fly from it; if they remain, they grow fixed and immovable, and their eyes become glazed as the eyes of death.
As terrible as such a dream was the vague, scarcely-to-be-imagined suggestion which these patient simple words of Dove bore with them ”

“ He suddenly became conscious that Annie Brunel—the intimate companion who had sate beside him in long railway-journeys, who had taken breakfast with him, and played cards with him in the evening—had come out before all these people to amuse or interest them; and that the coarse, and stupid, and vicious, and offensive faces that had been staring a few minutes ago at the two creatures in white silk were now staring in the same manner at her—at her who was his near friend. A wonderful new throb went through his heart at that thought—a throb that reddened his pale cheek. ”

“ The intense curiosity with which he had regarded the singular change in the girl's nature so soon as she left the stage, with the study of her pretty superficial carelessness, her frank audacious manner, and her quaint, maternal, matter-of-fact attitude towards himself, had wrought its inevitable work; and at the very moment when she was thinking that Mr. Anerley took a friendly pleasure in her society, he was longing to get away from it as from a torture too heavy to be borne—longing to get away, and unable to go. ”

“ This colonel—"a poor devil I could buy up twenty times over," said the Count, many a time—walked up to the fireplace, and turning, proceeded to contemplate the Count, his wine, and cigar, as if these objects had no sensible existence. He stroked his grey moustache once or twice, yawned very openly, and then walked lazily out of the room again without having uttered a word.
"D—n him!" said the Count, mentally; "the wretched pauper, who lives by loo, and looks as grand as an emperor because he has some swell relations, who won't give him a farthing. ”

“ Christmas, will you take my arm? It is a long climb. And now that you have surrendered yourself to my care, may I recommend a luxury peculiar to the place? One ought never to sit in Rhine gardens without sparkling Muscatel, seltzer-water, and ice, to be drank out of frosted champagne-glasses, in the open air, with flowers around us, and the river below——"
"You anticipate," said Miss Brunel. "Perhaps the gardens are only a smoking-room, filled with people."
The "gardens" turned out to be a long and spacious balcony, not projecting from the building, but formed out of the upper floor. ”

“ She intimated that these quarrels with the young gentleman who escorted her to and from the stage-door—quarrels which came off at a rate of about seven per week—were disturbing the serenity of her mind so far as to compel her to assist nature with violet-powder and rouge.
"Do you know, my dear," she said, in a whisper that sent Mr. Melton away on his own business, "he swears he will forsake me for ever if I accept a part in which I must wear tights. How can I help it, my dear? What is a poor girl to do?"
"Wear trousers," said Annie Brunel, with a smile.
"Nothing will please him. ”

“ And Count Schönstein had sufficient acquaintance with actresses to know, that while they have the most astonishing capacity for emotion, if their sympathies be properly excited, there are no people who, in cold blood, can so accurately detect the ridiculous in a man's exterior. An actress in love forgets everything but her love; an actress not in love has the cruellest eye for the oddities or defects of figure and costume. ”

“ Tell me, do you think Miss Brunel handsome?"
"I think she has the face of a woman of genius," he said, with a glance of genuine admiration.
"Bah! that means nothing. Don't you think she shows her teeth on purpose when she laughs; and then those big, soft eyes make her look affectedly sentimental. Why do you grin so? I suppose I am not as handsome as she is; but I wonder if she could put on my gloves and boots?"
"You have adorable hands and feet, Miss Featherstone; everybody allows that."
"Thank you. They say that every ugly woman has pretty hands and feet." ”

“ The Prince of Wales should live for ever, if only to be his friend.
And if this ultimate and royal view of the future was even more pleasing than the immediate and personal one, it never occurred to him that there could be any material change in passing from one to the other. Annie Brunel was to be grateful and loving towards him for having taken her from "the squalor of Islington" to give her a wealthy station; she was to be equally grateful and loving when she found herself the means of securing to her husband that position and respect which he had deceived her to obtain. ”

“ Why are Tories, as a rule, pleasanter companions than Radicals? I am a Radical; but I always prefer dining with a Tory?"
"Is the Count a Tory?" asked the Schulmeister.
"Yes. Men who have been in business and earned, or gained, a lot of money, almost invariably become fierce Tories. It is their first passport to respectability; and there is no step one can take so cheaply as that of changing one's political theories."
"What a singular social life you have in England!" cried Gersbach, blinking with a curious sort of humour behind his big spectacles. ”

“ It was Dove Anerley he wished to see come along the valley, on her way to church; and he waited there to discover what route she should take, that so he might intercept her.
Yet there seemed to be no living thing in the quiet valley. Sleepily lay the narrow river in its winding channel, marked by twin rows of pollard willows, now green with their first leaves; sleepily lay the thin blue smoke above the far white cottages and the grey churches; sleepily lay the warm sunlight over the ruddy ploughed fields, the green meadows, the dark fir-wood along the top of the hill ”