"And your name?" said she.
"Patrick," I replied.
"Pawthrick," said she, trying to put her small mouth round the word. "I cannot say it. I will call you Toto. Come with me," leading me by the sleeve, "and I will introduce you to my mother. She is here"—drawing towards the door of the room from whence she had come—"in here. Do you know why I call you Toto?"
"Non, mademoiselle."
"He was my rabbit, and he died," said Eloise, as we entered a great salon where several ladies were seated conversing.
Toward one of these ladies, more beautiful in my eyes than the dawn, Eloise led me.
"Maman," said she, "this is Toto."
The Countess Feliciani, for that was the name of the mother of Eloise, smiled upon us. I dare say we made a quaint and pretty enough pair. She was perhaps, thirty—the Countess Feliciana, a woman of Genoa, blue-eyed and golden-haired, and beautiful—Ah! when a blonde is beautiful, her beauty transcends the beauty of all brunettes.
I bowed, she spoke to me, I stammered. She put my awkwardness down to bashfulness, no doubt, but it was not bashfulness. I was in love with the Countess Feliciani, stricken to the heart at first sight.