on with no bread, my dear!'"

"How no bread?" asks the Baroness.

"Well, no bread except at his brother's side-table. The elder said as
much."

"What a hard-hearted wretch!" cries Madame de Bernstein.

"Ah, bah! I play with you, aunt, cartes sur table! Mr. George only did
what everybody else would do; and we have no right to be angry with him,
really we haven't. Molly herself acknowledged as much, after her first
burst of grief was over, and I brought her to listen to reason. The
silly old creature! to be so wild about a young lad at her time of
life!"

"'Twas a real passion, I almost do believe," said Madame de Bernstein.

"You should have heard her take leave of him. C'etait touchant, ma
parole d'honneur! I cried. Before George, I could not help myself. The
young fellow with muddy stockings, and his hair about his eyes, flings
himself amongst us when we were at dinner; makes his offer to Molly in a
very frank and noble manner, and in good language too; and she replies.
Begad, it put me in mind of Mrs. Woffington in the new Scotch play, that
Lord Bute's man has wrote--Douglas--what d'ye call it? She clings round
the lad: she bids him adieu in heartrending accents. She steps out of
the room in a stately despair--no more chocolate, thank you. If she had
made a mauvais pas no one could retire from it with more dignity. 'Twas
a masterly retreat after a defeat. We were starved out of our position,
but we retired with all the honours of war."

"Molly won't die of the disappointment!" said my lord's aunt, sipping
her cup.

My lord snarled a grin, and showed his yellow teeth. "He, he!" he
said, "she hath once or twice before had the malady very severely, and
recovered perfectly. It don't kill, as your ladyship knows, at Molly's
age."

How should her ladyship know? She did not marry Doctor Tusher until she
was advanced in life. She did not become Madame de Bernstein until still
later. Old Dido, a poet remarks, was not ignorant of misfortune, and
hence learned to have compassion on the wretched.

People in the little world, as I have been told, quarrel and fight, and
go on abusing each other, and are not reconciled for ever so long. But
people in the great world are surely wiser in their generation. They
have differences; they cease seeing each other. They make it up and come
together again, and no questions are asked. A stray prodigal, or a stray
puppy-dog, is thus brought in under the benefit of an amnesty, though