This singular female was nearly as tall as Madame de Hansfeld, but considerably thinner. She wore a high dress of black silk, with a small handkerchief of the same material tied around her throat, to confine her closely plaited collar.
Dressed in a large flapped hat, and wrapped in a cloak, the female we are describing might easily pass for one of the opposite sex, and as such accompany Madame de Hansfeld, who feared to return alone during the night, in so lonely a place, and almost entirely at the mercy of a coachman.
During the interview at the Opera-ball, the young girl had awaited the princess in a fiacre, and afterwards accompanied her home.
Perceiving the deep reverie into which Madame de Hansfeld had fallen, she said,—
"Godmother, it is very late, you must go to bed."
"I have seen him!" exclaimed the princess, impetuously. "He may be my ruin!" continued she, turning with flashing eyes towards her god-daughter (whom we shall style Iris, entreating the reader's pardon for this little mythological fancy).
"Whom have you seen, godmother?" inquired the girl, terrified at the wildness and desperation of Madame de Hansfeld's manner.
"Charles de Brévannes!"
"He here?"
"I tell you I saw him—just now—at the opera! oh, it was he too surely! and as surely does the presence of this man portend some fresh misfortune to me."