Angelique brushed back her glorious hair and stared fixedly in the
face of her friend, as if seeking confirmation of something in her
own thoughts.

"What a strange question, Angelique! Why do you ask me in that
way?"

"Because," replied she with bitterness, "I begin to doubt it. I
have been praised for my good looks until I grow weary of the
iteration; but I believed the lying flattery once,--as what woman
would not, when it is repeated every day of her life?"

Amelie looked sufficiently puzzled. "What has come over you,
Angelique? Why should you doubt your own charms? or really, have
you found at last a case in which they fail you?"

Very unlikely, a man would say at first, second, or third sight of
Angelique des Meloises. She was indeed a fair girl to look upon,--
tall, and fashioned in nature's most voluptuous mould, perfect in
the symmetry of every part, with an ease and beauty of movement not
suggestive of spiritual graces, like Amelie's, but of terrestrial
witcheries, like those great women of old who drew down the very
gods from Olympus, and who in all ages have incited men to the
noblest deeds, or tempted them to the greatest crimes.

She was beautiful of that rare type of beauty which is only
reproduced once or twice in a century to realize the dreams of a
Titian or a Giorgione. Her complexion was clear and radiant, as of
a descendant of the Sun God. Her bright hair, if its golden ripples
were shaken out, would reach to her knees. Her face was worthy of