Chapter 2
THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE. As Stella answered Lady Loring, she was smartly tapped on the shoulder by an eager guest with a fan. The guest was a very little woman, with twinkling eyes and a perpetual smile. Nature, corrected by powder and paint, was liber ally displayed in her arms, her bosom, and the upper part of her back. Such clothes as she wore, defective perhaps in quantity, were in quality absolutely perfect. More adorable color, shape, and workmanship never appeared, even in a milliner's picture-book. Her light hair was dressed with a fringe and ringlets, on the pattern which the portraits of the time of Charles the Second have made familiar to us. There was nothing exactly young or exactly old about her except her voice, which betrayed a faint hoarseness, attributable po
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