"Perhaps you dislike travelling altogether?"

"No, sir."

"Perhaps——" But I checked myself—and,
with a somewhat stiff air, I said, " Would you
like a book ?"

"If it would not be rude to read, sir, while
you——"

"Oh, not at all, never mind me, I have more
than enough to think of. Here are some things
by Dumas, and Paul Féval, and some guidebook
trash." And with that I handed her several
volumes, and sank back into my corner in sulky
isolation.

Here was a change! Ten minutes ago, all
nature smiled on me; from the lark in the high
heavens to the chirping grasshopper in the tall
maize-field, it was one song of joy and gladness.
The very clouds as they swept past threw new
and varied light over the scene, as though
to show fresh effects of beauty on the landscape
—the streams went by in circling eddies, like
smiles upon a lovely face—and now all was sad
and crape-covered! " What has wrought this
dreary change," thought I; " is it possible that
the cold looks of a young woman, good-looking,
I grant, but no regular downright beauty after
all, can have altered the aspect of the whole
world to you? Are you so poor a creature in
yourself, Potts, so beggared in your own
resources, so barren in all the appliances of thought
and reflection, that if your companion, whoever
she or he may be, sulk, you must needs
reflect the humour? Are you nothing but
the mirror that displays what is placed before
it?"

I set myself deliberately to scan the profile
beside me; her black veil, drawn down on the
side furthest from me, formed a sort of
background, which displayed her pale features more
distinctly. All about the brow and orbit was
beautifully regular, but the mouth was, I
fancied, severe; there was a slight retraction of
the upper lip that seemed to imply over-firmness,
and then the chin was deeply indented—"a
sign," Lavater says, " of those who have a will
of their own." "Potts," thought I, "she'd
rule you—that's a nature would speedily master
yours. I don't think there's any softness either,
any of that yielding gentleness there, that
makes the poetry of womanhood; besides, I
suspect she's worldly—those sharply cut
nostrils are very worldly! She is, in fact "—
and here I unconsciously uttered my thoughts
aloud—" she is, in fact, one to say, 'Potts, how
much have you got a year? Let us have it in
figures.'"

"So you are still ruminating over the life of
that interesting creature," said she, laying down
her book to laugh; " and, shall I confess, I lay
awake half the night inventing incidents and
imagining situations for him."

"For whom?" said I, innocently.

" For Potts, of course. I cannot get him out
of my head such as I first fancied he might be,
and I see now, by your unconscious allusion to
him, that he has has place in your imagination
also."

"You mistake, Miss Herbert—at least you
very much misapprehend my conception of that
character. The Potts family has a high historic
tradition. Sir Constantine Potts was cup-bearer
to Henry the Second, and I really see no reason
why ridicule should attach to one who may be,
most probably, his descendant."

" I'm very sorry, sir, if I should have dared
to differ with you; but when I heard the name
first, and in connexion with two such names as
Algernon Sydney, and when I thought by what
strange accident did they ever meet in the one
person——"

"You are very young, Miss Herbert, and
therefore not removed from the category of the
teachable," said I, with a grand didactic look.
"Let me guard you, therefore, against the levity
of chance inferences. What would you say if a
person named Potts were to make the offer of
his hand? I mean, if he were a man in all
respects acceptable, a gentleman captivating in
manner and address, agreeable in person, graceful
and accomplished— what would you reply to
his advances?"

" Really, sir, I am shocked to think of the
humble opinion I may be conveying of my sense
and judgment, but I'm afraid I should tell him
it is impossible I could ever permit myself to be
called Mrs. Potts."

"But, in Heaven's name, why?—I ask you
why?"

"Oh, sir! don't be angry with me; it surely
does not deserve such a penalty; at the worst it
is a mere caprice on my part."

"I am not angry, young lady, I am simply
provoked; I am annoyed to think that a prejudice
so unworthy of you should exercise such a
control over your judgment."

"I am quite ashamed, sir, to have been the
occasion of so much displeasure to you. I hope
and trust you will ascribe it to my utter
ignorance of life and the world."

"If you are dissatisfied with yourself, Miss
Herbert, I have no more to say," said I, taking
up a book and pretending to read, while I felt
such a disgust with myself that if I hadn't been
strapped up with a leather apron up to my chin,
I think I should have thrown myself headlong
down and let the wheel pass over me. " What is
it, Potts, that is corrupting and destroying the
naturally fine and noble nature you are certainly
endowed with? Is it this confounded elevation
to princely rank? If you were not a royal highness
would you have dared to utter such cruelties
as these? Would you, in your most savage
of moods, have presumed to make that pale
cheek paler, and forced a tear-drop into that
liquid eye? I always used to think that the
greatest effort of a man was to keep himself on
a level with those born above him. I now find
it is far harder to stoop than to stand on tip-
toe. Such a pain in the back comes of always
bending, and it is so difficult to do it gracefully!"

I was positively dying to be what the French
call " bon prince," and yet I didn't know how
to set about it. I could not take off one of my