ubt, there
have been twenty Countesses of Galgenstein since your time."

"I don't believe any such thing, sir," said Mrs. Catherine, starting up
very angrily.

"If you did, I suppose you'd laudanum him; wouldn't you?"

"Leave the room, fellow," said the lady. But she recollected herself
speedily again; and, clasping her hands, and looking very wretched
at Brock, at the ceiling, at the floor, at her husband (from whom she
violently turned away her head), she began to cry piteously: to which
tears the Corporal set up a gentle accompaniment of whistling, as they
trickled one after another down her nose.

I don't think they were tears of repentance; but of regret for the time
when she had her first love, and her fine clothes, and her white hat and
blue feather. Of the two, the Corporal's whistle was much more innocent
than the girl's sobbing: he was a rogue; but a good-natured old fellow
when his humour was not crossed. Surely our novel-writers make a great
mistake in divesting their rascals of all gentle human qualities:
they have such--and the only sad point to think of is, in all private
concerns of life, abstract feelings, and dealings with friends, and
so on, how dreadfully like a rascal is to an honest man. The man who
murdered the Italian boy, set him first to play with his children whom
he loved, and who doubtless deplored his loss.

CHAPTER VI. ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADOR, MR. MACSHANE.

If we had not been obliged to follow history in all respects, it
is probable that we should have left out the last adventure of Mrs.
Catherine and her husband, at the inn at Worcester, altogether; for, in
truth, very little came of it, and it is not very romantic or striking.
But we are bound to stick closely, above all, by THE TRUTH--the truth,
though it be not particularly pleasant to read of or to tell. As anybody
may read in the "Newgate Calendar," Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were taken at
an inn at Worcester; were confined there; were swindled by persons who
pretended to impress the bridegroom for military service. What is one
to do after that? Had we been writing novels instead of authentic
histories, we might have carried them anywhere else we chose: and we
had a great mind to make Hayes philosophising with Bolingbroke, like a
certain Devereux; and Mrs. Catherine maitresse en titre to Mr. Alexander
Pope, Doctor Sacheverel, Sir John Reade the oculist, Dean Swift,
or Marshal Tallard; as the very commonest romancer would un