Her tall figure was of exquisite proportions; and her arms, adorned but not hidden by the lace which fell from the short sleeves of her crimson velvet dress, were as fair and beautiful as those of the Venus of Milo.
Count Esterhazy, intoxicated by the sight of her wondrous beauty, withdrew abashed behind the window-curtain, while the countess, graceful as an angry leopardess, bounded through the room, and stood before her uncle.
"Who has annoyed you, my child?" asked he timidly.
"He is an idiot, an awkward animal, and shall be driven from the house with the lash!" cried she. "Just imagine, uncle, that as I was coming hither, I met him in the anteroom with a plateau of cups and glasses. When he saw me, the fool fell to trembling as if he had seen an evil spirit—the plateau shook; and my dear mother's last gift, the goblet from which she had cooled her dying lips, fell to the floor and was broken."
Her voice, at first so loud and angry, was now soft and pathetic, and her eyes glistened with tears. She shook them off impatiently.
"I can well understand, dear child, how much it must have grieved you to lose this precious relic," said her uncle, soothingly.
She blushed as though she had been surprised in a fault.
"Oh, it was not that," said she, pettishly, "it is all the same to me whether the goblet was a relic or not, for I hate sentiment. But I detest such an awkward fool. He never COULD carry any thing without letting it fall."
"Nay, my child, he has often carried you for hours in his arms, and yet he never let you fall."
"Uncle, your jests are insupportable," cried she, stamping with her little satin-slippered foot upon the carpet. "You excuse this gray-headed dunce merely to vex me, and to remind me that I am an orphan without a home."