PIQUE. CHAPTER I. Ir was with feelings of no slight embarrassment and constraint that Mildred, on the following morning, prepared to meet her inflexible spouse at the breakfast-table. She lingered so long over, and evinced such strange caprice at, her toilette, that poor Aglaë's patience never was more severely tried. Nevertheless, Mildred might have spared herself the pain of revolving how it would best become her dignity to comport herself, or what she should say, for there was something so very kind, frank, and cordial, in the way the Earl advanced to greet her; something so encouraging in the manner he took her hand and led her to her seat, VOL. II. B |