take me by the hand, and to present us to the queen of the salon.

'Here, my mother, are our Odoardo and Gildippe,' she said.

You remember, my children, that Odoardo and Gildippe are the names
bestowed by Tasso on the English married pair who went together on
the first crusade, and Gildippe continued to be my name in that
circle, my nom de Parnasse, as it was called--nay, Madame de
Montausieur still gives it to me.

The allusion was a fortunate one; it established a precedent, and,
besides, English people have always been supposed to be eccentric. I
am, however, doing the noble lady injustice. Arthenice, as she was
called by an anagram of her baptismal name of Catherine, was no blind
slave to the conventional. She had originality enough to have been
able to purify the whole sphere in which she moved, and to raise the
commonplace into the ideal. 'Excuse me,' she said to her friends,
and she led my husband apart into a deep window, and there, as he
told me, seemed to look him through and through. And verily he was
one who needed not to fear such an inspection, any more than the
clearest crystal.

Then, in like manner, she called for me, and made me understand that
I was condemning myself to a life of much isolation, and that I must
be most circumspect in my conduct, whole, after all, I might see very
little of my husband; I must take good care that my presence was a
help and refreshment, not a burden and perplexity to him, or he would
neglect me and repent my coming. 'It may seem strange,' she said,
'but I think my young friend will understand me, that I have always
found that, next of course to those supplied by our holy religion,