'Could you look into my heart, you would find but one word—one idea stamped there.'
'And that is——'
'"Dolores"—meaning sorrow and lamentation if you love me not.'
She laughed merrily again, and again the sombre look came into his face; so she dropped her fan and held out two small white hands as if to deprecate his wrath, for she had an energetic way with her, so he instantly caught them in his own.
She was quite occupied in trying to release them when a familiar rap was heard on the knocker of the street door, an enormous lion's head of brass, with a huge ring in its jaws.
'Oh, I keep your hands prisoners,' said he: 'pardon me,' he added, as he stooped and kissed them; and she had barely time to wrench them away when a liveried valet ushered in Lewie Baronald, and in spite of herself and the presence of her cousin she could not conceal the joy with which his presence inspired her.
'Welcome,' she said, and held forth her hand. Oh, what a hand he thought it—small, plump, and white—so slim and shapely!
There was neither shyness, coquetry, nor embarrassment in the girl's manner, for in their assured position with each other both she and her lover were long past anything of the kind; but the latter and her cousin bowed rather grimly to each other, and mutually muttered:
'Your servant—Mynheer.'
Lewie Baronald now crossed the polished floor of the drawing-room to greet the Countess, who rose to receive him, and who looked so young and so pretty that she might have passed for an elder sister of Dolores; and stooping low he kissed her hand, looking, as he did so, with his sword at his side under the stiff square skirt of his coat, and his hat under his arm, with his ruffles and cravat of fine lace, a model of those stately manners that lingered in Europe when George III. was King—in Scotland, perhaps, longer than anywhere else.