much arrangement, and much art; from the water-jet, trained to fling its silvery cascade, to the yew trees shaped into peacocks; still it was arrangement prompted by taste, and art that loved the nature which it guided. And if the horticultural skill, on which Mrs Churchill piqued herself, might have escaped the stranger's observation, the little knot now gathered before her terrace would inevitably have caught his attention.
The party was of five: Ethel and her half companion, half-attendant, Lavinia Fenton, our countess, and two young gallants. Three of these were singing: but the attitude and bearing of the entire group, careless as it was, told of their individual peculiarities more effectively, perhaps, than would have been betrayed in more constrained hours.
Norbourne Courtenaye was a stripling of some three or four and twenty, whose fair complexion made him look even younger. He had that air which so marks our aristocracy—that air which, if not embodied in the word 'high-bred,' is beyond the reach of words. He had those fine and prominently cut features which grow handsomer
