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CHAPTER III.
The next morning the sun shone brilliantly; the sky was blue; the wind was a very gentle breeze from the sea; Lady Hilda's breakfast chocolate was well made; the tea-roses and the heliotrope almost hid the magenta furniture and the gilded plaster consoles, and the staring mirrors. They had sent her in a new story of Octave Feuillet; M. de St. Louis had forwarded her a new volume of charming verse by Sully Prudhomme, only sold on the Boulevards two days before, with a note of such grace and wit that it ought to have been addressed to Elysium for Mme. de Sevigne; the post brought her only one letter, which announced that her brother, Lord Clairvaux, would come thither to please her, after the
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