herself from doing it with that unctuous feeling for rank which warmed
her Portuguese sketches in low society and among her sisters. She
retired before Miss Current and formed audience, glad of a relief to her
inventive labour. While Miss Current and her ephemerals lightly skimmed
the surface of human life, the Countess worked in the depths. Vanities,
passions, prejudices beneath the surface, gave her full employment. How
naturally poor Juliana Bonner was moved to mistake Evan's compassion for
a stronger sentiment! The Countess eagerly assisted Providence to
shuffle the company into their proper places. Harry Jocelyn was moodily
happy, but good; greatly improved in the eyes of his grandmama Bonner,
who attributed the change to the Countess, and partly forgave her the
sinful consent to the conditions of her love-match with the foreign
Count, which his penitent wife had privately confessed to that strict
Churchwoman.

'Thank Heaven that you have no children,' Mrs. Bonner had said; and the
Countess humbly replied:

'It is indeed my remorseful consolation!'

'Who knows that it is not your punishment?' added Mrs. Bonner; the
Countess weeping.

She went and attended morning prayers in Mrs. Bonner's apartments, alone
with the old lady. 'To make up for lost time in Catholic Portugal!' she
explained it to the household.

On the morning after Miss Current had come to shape the party, most of
the inmates of Beckley Court being at breakfast, Rose gave a lead to the
conversation.