ined her side.

"A view of Sorrento, Monsieur, but it does not do justice to the place.
I was pointing out the house which belonged to Tasso's father."

"Tasso! Hein! and which is the fair Eleonora's?"

"Monsieur," answered Isaura, rather startled at that question, from a
professed homme de lettres, "Eleonora did not live at Sorrento."

"Tant pis pour Sorrente," said the homme de lettres, carelessly. "No one
would care for Tasso if it were not for Eleonora."

"I should rather have thought," said Graham, "that no one would have
cared for Eleonora if it were not for Tasso."

Rameau glanced at the Englishman superciliously. "Pardon, Monsieur, in
every age a love-story keeps its interest; but who cares nowadays for le
clinquant du Tasse?"

"Le clinquant du Tasse!" exclaimed Isaura, indignantly.

"The expression is Boileau's, Mademoiselle, in ridicule of the 'Sot de
qualite,' who prefers--

"'Le clinquant du Tasse a tout l'or de Virgile.'

"But for my part I have as little faith in the last as the first."

"I do not know Latin, and have therefore not read Virgil," said Isaura.

"Possibly," remarked Graham, "Monsieur does not know Italian, and has
therefore not read Tasso."

"If that be meant in sarcasm," retorted Rameau, "I construe it as a
compliment. A Frenchman who is contented to study the masterpieces of
modern literature need learn no language and read no authors but his
own."

Isaura laughed her pleasant silvery laugh. "I should admire the
frankness of that boast, Monsieur, if in our talk just now you had not
spoken as contemptuously of what we are accustomed to consider French
masterpieces as you have done of Virgil and Tasso."

"Ah, Mademoiselle! it is not my fault if you have had teachers of
taste so rococo as to bid you find masterpieces in the tiresome stilted
tragedies of Corneille and Racine. Poetry of a court, not of a people,
one simple novel, one simple stanza that probes the hidden recesses
of the human heart, reveals the sores of this wretched social state,
denounces the evils of superstition, kingcraft, and priestcraft, is
worth a library of the rubbish which pedagogues call 'the classics.' We
agree, at least, in one thing, Mademoiselle; we both do homage to the
genius of your friend Madame de Grantmesnil."

"Your friend, Signorina!" cried Graham, incredulously; "is Madame de
Grantmesnil your friend?"

"The dearest I have in the world."

Graham's face darkened; he turned away